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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23689735">A Nightingale Sang</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciosophia/pseuds/sciosophia'>sciosophia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Big Switch Energy, Break Up, Breaking Up &amp; Making Up, Competence Kink, Edging, Eventual Smut, F/M, Falling In Love, Flying At Thirsty Thousand Feet, Foreplay, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, HEA, Happy Ending, Historical, Loss of Virginity, Peril, Praise Kink, Romance, Semi-Public Sex, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, Switching, Wartime Romance, World War II, all's well that ends well</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:21:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,215</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23689735</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciosophia/pseuds/sciosophia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>1940. In the skies above Britain, First Officer Rey Johnson of the ATA and Flight Lieutenant Ben Solo of the Eagle Squadron are flying Spitfires. 350,000 troops have just been evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk. The world is at war, half of Europe has fallen, and love is the only thing to hold on to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>186</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>193</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anniversary Fic Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. june brings a basket full of dreams</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoeticEdda/gifts">NoeticEdda</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you, NoeticEdda, for the wonderful prompt: I've always wanted to write a WWII AU and this was the perfect excuse. I hope you don't mind that I put Rey in the ATA instead of the ATS; having her in the sky was too good a chance to miss.</p><p>Written for The Writing Den's 2020 Anniversary Exchange. </p><p>Title from the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RRNlBGL89g"><em>A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square</em></a>.</p><p>The chapter count is currently a guestimate and may change.</p><p>I've been flexible with some elements of the timeline for the Air Transport Auxiliary and the Eagle Squadron, but have otherwise tried to be as historically accurate as possible.</p><p>And lastly, thank you to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeofsnark/pseuds/lifeofsnark">lifeofsnark</a> for the cheerleading and handholding as I yelled at her about 1940s aircraft.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="font-quote">I may be right, I may be wrong<br/>
But I'm perfectly willing to swear<br/>
That when you turned and smiled at me<br/>
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square</p>
<hr/>
<p class="font-date">
  june brings a basket full of dreams<br/><strong>4 June 1940
</strong>
</p>
<p>Ben lifts a hand to his eyes and thinks, without much concern, that the whine of approaching aircraft sounds like dread personified. </p>
<p>It fills the gaps between cotton clouds, strange music for a sunny English morning. The plane is low, trailing after its own noise above Ben’s head. Red-blue roundels gleam at each end of the wings, bright against mottled camouflage, and the split-second of tension in Ben’s shoulders eases. Friendly.</p>
<p>And, better than that, this one is <em>his</em>. Or will be.</p>
<p>He watches the plane arc across the sky, flashing sunlight as it goes, and then lowers his arm and continues down the country lane. The noise has curled up in his chest, stoking excitement like a furnace as the Spitfire rockets along, descending rapidly, readying to land. Ben imagines the sequence: speed falling first to 138 knots, then 82; control lever set to give 2650 RPM and fully forward on the final approach; red light out on the supercharger; flaps down. </p>
<p>Suddenly he feels unbearably heavy, unwillingly earthbound. He picks up his pace despite the summer heat sticking his uniform shirt and jacket to his back. Doesn’t matter. He’ll cool down plenty at 20,000 feet. </p>
<p>The lane ends and the base begins just as the Spitfire is drifting to the ground. Ben, approaching from the sweep of its back yard, loses the aircraft behind RAF Crait’s main building, a red-brick country manor with leaded windows and the new addition of sandbags piled high around its doorways. The long drive and acres of front lawn have been converted into a temporary aerodrome, stacked with Hurricanes and Masters and other Spitfires. The elegant partygoers of the previous decade have been replaced with ground crew and engineers.</p>
<p>“Look—” </p>
<p>Poe appears from nowhere, knocks Ben’s arm with his curled fist, a tap that is thoughtlessly weighty but no less friendly for it. Both of them watch as the Spitfire rumbles gently across the gravel, wheels bumping even though the drive is raked back into shape after each take-off and landing. </p>
<p>Poe whistles appreciatively. It cuts the air, suddenly loud as the Spitfire’s propeller slows and the engine growls gently into silence. Every other noise rushes in to fill its place. Eagle Squadron pilots whoop and holler at the new machine, looking up from their games of Crazy Eights, cards still in their hands. Everyone is flush with the weather and the good news of yesterday's evacuation, and they crane their necks from their fold-out seats at fold-out tables, scattered over the grass like human croquet wickets. The Spitfire has coasted beautifully to a standstill.</p>
<p>“Pretty good landing,” Ben murmurs.</p>
<p>Poe sighs. It’s theatrical. “Ben, for once, give another man some credit. That was perfect.”</p>
<p>Ben says nothing.</p>
<p>The ground crew swarm around the Spitfire. Light glints off the glass canopy, a morse code of the pilot’s movements within, a dark shape obscured by sun. Ben takes a few steps across the lawn, heart thumping a little harder than his pace would suggest. It’s waiting for him up there; blue sky overhead, tiny green farmland or glittering sea below. He can be in the air before the day is done, if the call comes.</p>
<p>The plane’s canopy pushes back, and the pilot’s hands land on the metal frame, pushing him upright. Rolled-up, pale blue shirtsleeves and slender freckled forearms appear, and Ben’s split-second of confusion stutters and then folds into dawning realization. </p>
<p>Her eyes are hidden behind white plastic sunglasses with cats-eye frames, but her mood is clear from the smile that splits her face; wide and dazzling. As she stands and straightens he can see the shirt is from her Air Transport Auxiliary uniform, her navy tie pinned in place with a pair of gold wings. She’s wearing her uniform pants, much darker than airforce blue and cinched around her waist by a belt. She slings the heavy jacket behind her, hooked on the end of her finger. The two gold stripes on the shoulders are bright in the sun, almost yellow.</p>
<p>She’s chatting to the ground crew as she steps out of the cockpit and onto the Spitfire’s wing, folding her sunglasses up into the pocket of her shirt. One of the engineers says something and she laughs, throwing her head back. Ben’s gut burns with a feeling he doesn’t understand, twisting his face, and at that moment she looks back down and catches his eye.</p>
<p>Her sunny disposition disappears like a flipped switch. Clouds gather in her face, knitting her brows together and crumpling her mouth, and she jumps from the Spitfire’s wing, landing gracefully on the lawn below. It feels like the punctuation to some point, though whatever that point is, Ben has no idea. </p>
<p>Poe is ahead of him, rapidly approaching the pilot, and Ben realizes he stopped walking when he saw her. His face warms like sunburn and he clears his throat, keeps going. </p>
<p>“Look at her!” Poe throws his arms into the air with joy. The shoulders of his RAF uniform bunch beneath the curve of his life preserver and parachute harness. “What a beauty!”</p>
<p>“The plane,” Ben finds himself saying as the pilot’s expression darkens further. “He means the plane.”</p>
<p>She leans back slightly and raises her eyebrows. Up close Ben can see more freckles dusted over her nose, which she wrinkles in surprise as Poe circles one hand in the air and sweeps into a bow. He looks up, grinning with schoolboy enthusiasm. “Ma’am, that was a damned excellent landing.”</p>
<p>Ben nudges (kicks) Poe in the ankle, an instinct driven by Grandma Breha’s voice in his head—<em>never swear around a lady, sweetheart</em>. The pilot’s eyes flicker down to their feet and back up again, settling briefly on Ben. His pulse jumps.</p>
<p>Poe straightens up, and her gaze follows. Ben feels the loss of it. </p>
<p>“I mean it.” Poe calms a little, smile softening, lopsided. He has the kind of Cary Grant charm which makes Ben feel like a too-tall teenager all over again. “You’re one hell of a pilot.”</p>
<p>Another moment in which she studies them, a little line between her eyebrows—until she smiles. Seeing it again brings that twisted expression to Ben’s face, and he firms his lips into a line, stares straight ahead to try and chase it away. </p>
<p>“Flying a Spit helps.” She glances back at the plane. “It’s like—like—”</p>
<p>“Gliding.” The words are pushed from Ben’s mouth by an impulse he can’t control. “Like being weightless. Even in a six-thousand pound airplane.”</p>
<p>She narrows her eyes at him; nods slowly. </p>
<p>“Yeah.” Her voice is rich and soft, a little deeper than he’d thought it would be. “Exactly like that.”</p>
<p>Poe sticks his hand out. “Squadron Leader Dameron.”</p>
<p>She shakes it. “First Officer Johnson.”  </p>
<p>Poe slaps Ben’s arm with the back of his hand. “Same rank as Solo here. Or would be, if you were in the RAF.”</p>
<p>Her mouth pinches a little, but she curves it back into a smile. There’s tension in the corners now. </p>
<p>“Flight Lieutenant Solo, I take it?”</p>
<p>Ben nods. His hands are in his pockets; he belatedly removes them, too caught on her face for his brain to keep up, and offers one to her. When she takes it her fingers are warm, her palm a little rough. He wants to keep hold, so Ben does the only thing he can think of and shakes sharply once, twice, before letting go and stepping back. </p>
<p>The tightness in her smile winds up, making it something akin to a grimace. Her empty hand hovers, still in the shape of their handshake, and then she wipes both her palms on her pants and recovers that sunny expression. </p>
<p>“Well, gents, it was a pleasure to meet you, but I’ve a chit to get signed off and a journey to make back to HQ, so—” She turns to Poe with a light nod. “Enjoy flying your Spitfire.”</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s not mine,” Poe laughs. “It’s his.”</p>
<p>“Ah. Sorry. I assumed—” That little line between her brows again. “So you’re the one who got strafed by the Luftwaffe.”</p>
<p>A day full of heat haze, rippling and obscuring the world so that everything was that particular kind of achromatic (not like now, with the sun turning her hair a deep chestnut color he wants to eat). The sea is always gray here, he’d noticed that as a child at Grandma Padmé’s summer house, and twenty years later it had been no different, rolling gently 4000 feet beneath. The yellow nose of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 had stood out, its wings coming into view as the pilot banked towards him. </p>
<p>Ben had been lucky, he could admit, limping back to RAF Obas with bullet holes that had sliced through the fuselage but, somehow, missed the fuel tank and hydraulics.</p>
<p>“Yes. Along the coast, by the Thames estuary.”</p>
<p>“Heading for London, then. Like they did in May.”</p>
<p>Ben nods. The bombings of the capital are sporadic, but they feel like fingers reaching across the continent, cautious explorations that will bloom into something <em>more </em>and <em>worse</em>. His memories of the Great War are hazy (<em>never again</em>, they’d all said, and where had that got them?), but he recalls the same feeling.</p>
<p>First Officer Johnson hums, snagging her lip on one sharp eyetooth, and looks to the sky, as though expecting the Luftwaffe to descend from the clouds. Then she clears her throat and says, “She flies beautifully. Best one out of the factory yet.”</p>
<p><em>Take care of her</em> follows, unspoken. </p>
<p>“I know how to look after my aircraft,” Ben replies. As soon as the words leave his mouth he wants to rearrange them into what he really means—<em>you’re right, I will</em>—but his brain is late to catching up. The only thing left to fill the space is Poe’s shocked-delighted guffaw and First Officer Johnson’s sea-swell of anger.</p>
<p>“Look,” she hisses, “You clearly disapprove of women flying planes, but this—this is bloody <em>war</em>, and I’ll be in the sky as long as I’m needed. You’re not the only one who knows how to volunteer, <em>Sir</em>.”</p>
<p>Every word is sharp with seething rage. The honorific feels as hot and stinging as a slap.</p>
<p>She signals farewell to Poe and turns sharply on her heel, heading for the cool interior of the manor. Inside, Group Captain Norik will sign the chit to confirm delivery and then send this woman off to somewhere Ben can’t correct her assumptions.</p>
<p>He feels immobile, watching her walk away; and then she’s obscured by the hubbub of the base, by pilots and engineers walking across his field of vision, by the car that rounds the dried-up fountain and then parks, just as she’s jumping up the front stairs of the manor two at a time. She disappears into the dark maw of its mouth, and is gone.</p>
<p><em>That’s not it</em>, he wants to say. His head is swimming with her smile as she’d climbed from the Spitfire. <em>That’s not it at all.</em></p><hr/>
<p>It’s hot on the train, and more packed than Rey was expecting, so she stands in the vestibule with the window open, watching English countryside blur by. The air is tinged with the coal firing the steam engine—Rey is used to high-octane avgas stinging her nose, and the smoke makes her want to sneeze—but it’s a fine enough exchange for avoiding the way people are packed like tinned rations in the carriage. </p>
<p>Rey’s blood is still boiling through her, an anger that prickles along her hairline with summer sweat. That twisted expression on his face, like someone had stood on his foot. How dare he. How <em>dare</em> he. She’s not going to be judged by some—</p>
<p>“Bloody American,” she mutters to herself, and the man reading his paper by the other door <em>harrumphs </em>and snaps the crisp pages straighter.</p>
<p>—by some American who thinks she should be grounded, probably not just for the war but for always. </p>
<p>And it’s not that she isn’t used to it; Rey’s been judged by puffed up men like that since she was thirteen and old man Kenobi let her climb into the second seat of a worn-out Bristol F.2. They’d soared above Cairo, the Nile a glittering stripe of blue water and green vegetation cutting through the desert, and Rey had never wanted her feet to touch the earth again. </p>
<p>No, something about this is worse; because they’re both volunteers, maybe, here when no one has asked it of them, and she can only conclude that they share at least some values.</p>
<p>But maybe—maybe it’s because she’d watched Flight Lieutenant Solo step back from their handshake, fingers still warm from where his had enveloped hers completely, and his disdain hadn’t been enough to stop Rey thinking how handsome he was. </p>
<p><em>I like the uniform</em>, she tells herself. <em>That’s all. </em>Dusky blue; broad shoulders crowned with epaulets; the Eagle Squadron insignia stitched into the arm. The brass buttons of the jacket had strained when he breathed. </p>
<p>It simmers inside her, anger tumbling over a different kind of heat as the train screams to a slow stop; as Rey steps onto the platform; as she waits a half-hour for the car which is supposed to take her back to base. She decides it’s not coming and jumps the white picket fence, folding her jacket over her arm for the walk. Rey likes the heat. Her skin has been freckling since the weather started improving in May, and now the sun beats down as it drifts through the sky, lowering slowly to a long evening and a late sunset. </p>
<p>“What happened to the car?” Finn calls out as she crosses the tarmac of No.3 Ferry Pool Endor. Rey’s footsteps slap off the hard surface, mingling with the noise of a de Havilland Tiger Moth taking off behind her. Finn is looking up from his crouch, hands buried in the wiry guts of a Blenheim light bomber. </p>
<p>“No idea.” She kneels beside him, thankful for the hundredth time that Mothma pushed back on ATA women wearing skirts. “Probably stuck somewhere with an Air Marshall who’s late coming back from lunch.”</p>
<p>Finn laughs, eyes fixed on his work. He’s tossed aside the leather gloves, crumpled by his knees; his hands are covered in the shine of engine grease.</p>
<p>“You missed a good lunch here today.”</p>
<p>Rey groans. “Really?”</p>
<p>“Uh huh. Proper ham, fresh bread. Turns out the Army had surplus and somebody owed Mothma a favour.”</p>
<p>Rey’s mouth waters. She’d eaten hers at Balmorra Air Factory, waiting for the Spitfire to roll off the production line; a watery mutton and potato stew served in the cafeteria. She’s been dreaming of pre-war loaves for months. </p>
<p>“Hey, c’mon, don’t look so sad.” Finn wipes his hands on the trousers of his engineer’s uniform, stands. “You think I wouldn’t save you some?”</p>
<p>Excitement rolls up Rey’s chest and out of her throat as a little squeak, and she throws her arms around him, engine grease be damned. Underneath it Finn smells the same as he always has, like warm skin and heat even though they’re not in the desert anymore. </p>
<p>“Alright, alright.” He pushes her back with a smile. “Mothma’ll whip you if you get grease on that shirt.”</p>
<p>She steps back, grinning. “Still making sure I eat, huh?”</p>
<p>It’s jovial, the truth of it hidden underneath. Two orphans living off scraps, stealing eshta and kaka fruits off stands in the market. </p>
<p>The whine of a Hudson cuts through, buzzing overhead, and on instinct they both turn to watch the black dot in the cloudless sky grow bigger. Rey mentally runs through the list on the blackboard outside the Ops room. This morning it had said <em>SPITFIRE II</em> next to <em>Miss Johnson</em>, and beneath that, next to <em>LOCKHEED HUDSON</em>— </p>
<p>“Paige?”</p>
<p>Finn nods in her peripheral vision. “She’s bringing it here so Casterfo can drop it down at Taul in the morning.”</p>
<p>“They could just get Paige to take it the whole way,” Rey mutters, but it’s lost beneath the engines as Paige touches the bomber down on the tarmac. </p>
<p>Rey watches her friend climb down from the cockpit and jump gently to the ground, and admires again how Paige can be so effortlessly glamorous. Her lipstick has stayed in place since they said goodbye this morning; same for the hair she’d set in pin curls last night. It’s short and waved against her skull, healthy and shining in the good weather. She reminds Rey of Mary Pickford, glowing with the charm of the 1920s. </p>
<p>She waves to them both, and as they wave back Paige holds up a bag she’d climbed out with and grins.</p>
<p>“Beer,” she says when she reaches them, holding it open so they can peer inside. Nestled in the canvas are four Budweisers, brown glass beaded with condensation from being couriered at 10,000 feet. “Won them off some other Yanks while I was waiting at RAF Nentan.”</p>
<p>Paige leaves to store them in a cold, dark corner of the mess, and they scatter; Finn back to the Blenheim, Rey to let Commander Mothma know she’s returned, that both her and the delivered Spitfire are still in one piece.</p>
<p>“Oh, and I hear they’re expecting more recruits at RAF Crait,” Mothma says, eyes focused on her paperwork.</p>
<p>Rey’s already been dismissed, has reached the door. She turns, palm wrapped around the handle. “They are, Ma’am?”</p>
<p>“Yes.” Mothma gives her a quick, perfunctory smile. “And more recruits means more deliveries, so expect to see it back on the Ops board next week.”</p>
<p>Rey nods, even as her heart sinks and soars. Flight Lieutenant Solo and his handsome scowl all over again. “Yes, Ma’am.”</p>
<p>The working day draws to a close before the evening does, so that when Rose emerges from her Operations shift they’re already at the edge of the airfield, just beyond the shade of the trees. Endor Forest stretches out for miles behind them, giving its name to the base and the village, and when Rey looks up she can see light dappling through its leaves. </p>
<p>She uncrosses her legs, stretches them out over the grass. She’s pulled her trousers up above her knees—civvies this time, a billowing tan cotton sold cheap on the Edgeware Road—and kicked off her shoes. The Budweiser is still cool, held loosely in her palm. Somewhere a radio is repeating the Prime Minister’s words in the Commons, given moments ago, the newsreader's plummy voice drifting on a breeze. <em>We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets. </em>The four of them are lounging in a contented half-stupor, and when Rey breathes in the air is summer-fresh, tinted with metal and fuel and the sweet spice of the hops in her beer.</p>
<p>Sometimes, even surrounded by it, the war feels very far away.</p>
<p>“Do you have to fix the Blenheim?” Paige props her chin in her hand, lain across the grass. “It’s like driving a goddamn bus, all those fumes.”</p>
<p>“You can’t pick and choose,” Rose says gently. </p>
<p>“No, I can’t, but <em>you </em>can.”</p>
<p>Rose rolls her eyes. “For the last time, I’m not going to give you all the best jobs. I have to assign them fairly—”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” and Paige moves her sister’s beer, invades Rose’s personal space with jabbing fingers that make her squeal with indignant laughter, “Assign them fairly to <em>me</em>—”</p>
<p>They stumble up and race off, chasing each other along the boundary of the airfield, following the line of the trees. Finn smiles against his beer as he sips it, watching them. </p>
<p>“It’s nice,” Rey says. “That they have each other.”</p>
<p>He finds her hand and squeezes it without looking. “Same as I’ve got you.”</p>
<p>Rey squeezes back.</p>
<p>“Hey.” Finn turns to face her. “I never asked. How was the Spit?”</p>
<p>“<em>Wonderful</em>.” The word tumbles from Rey’s mouth, curving into the shape of her smile. “I move, it moves, y’know? Nothing compares.”</p>
<p>“I hope there are more on the board soon. For you, I mean.”</p>
<p>“Me too.” The men are still, invariably, assigned more than the women. “Mothma did say they’ll need more up at Crait because—<em>oh</em>—”</p>
<p>“Uh oh. What?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t tell you, I met the worst man up there today. You know the type, thinks a woman should be in the kitchen and not in an aeroplane.” </p>
<p>Finn exhales heavily through his nose. Rey is aware that he does indeed, from his own experience, know the type.</p>
<p>“The way he scowled at me, could barely <em>touch</em> me when we shook hands. It was like my existence, my—my audacity to fly!—was an offence to his entire being. Seriously, the next time I see Flight Lieutenant Solo I’m going to—”</p>
<p>A choking sound as Finn swallows his beer the wrong way. </p>
<p>“Oh god, are you alright—” </p>
<p>“Flight Lieutenant Solo?” he gasps, wiping beer from his chin. “Tall guy, dark hair, Eagle Squadron?”</p>
<p>Rey nods slowly. “Yeah. Do you…know him?”</p>
<p>Finn starts—starts <em>laughing</em>. It’s unbalancing, and Rey sits back from where she’d reached out, ready to knock the air back into his lungs. Clearly Finn’s not having a problem with that. </p>
<p>“I mean, sure, I fixed his plane up at RAF Kile but we exchanged about three words, that’s not the point. Do you know who his mom is?”</p>
<p>Rey’s gut sinks. “No?”</p>
<p>“It’s—” and Finn is still laughing, “His mom is Leia Organa.”</p>
<p>The world tilts. </p>
<p>“Leia Organa?” she repeats faintly. “<em>The</em> Leia Organa?”</p>
<p> “Uh huh.”</p>
<p>The very same woman whose likeness is pinned up in Rey’s billet, cut out from a magazine she’d found in old Kenobi’s belongings. <em>Celebrated Balloon Pilot Leia Organa Makes History As First Woman to Fly New Machine-Powered Aircraft</em>. Beneath the headline is a wildly hyperbolic drawing of a young woman at the controls of an early biplane, soaring over Burbank. The magazine is dated 22 October 1910.</p>
<p>Rey recalls with startling clarity that the artist had drawn a chubby, dark-haired baby asleep in a bassinet on the passenger seat. </p>
<p>“Oh my god.” She slaps her hands over her face, as though muffling her voice will muffle the truth. “Oh no. Oh, god. Finn. <em>Finn</em>. I said that to his face. I told Leia Organa’s son that he doesn’t like women flying planes.”</p>
<p>Finn’s laughter crescendos, tilting him back until he’s lying on the grass clutching his belly. Rey peaks out from between her fingers in time to see the others notice and start walking back. Her face is burning like she’s been blasted by the opening door of a stove. </p>
<p>“Why didn’t he say something? Why did he just let me prattle on?” </p>
<p>
  <em>Why was he scowling at me like that?</em>
</p>
<p>“I mean this with love, Rey, but when you get mad, you get really mad. Maybe you frightened him?”</p>
<p>Finn is still laughing, though it’s settling now as Rose and Paige draw closer, arms linked. He rolls his head along the grass to look at Rey. </p>
<p>“Don’t be ridiculous,” she mutters, and then, louder, “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”</p>
<p>Finn shakes his head, grins. “No.”</p>
<p>Rose and Paige arrive—<em>sounds like you’re having fun</em>—and Finn sits up, hands already talking in exuberant gestures—<em>you have got to hear this</em>—and Rey lets their voices wash over her. </p>
<p><em>Gliding</em>, Solo had said. <em>Like being weightless</em>.</p>
<p>Rey sips her beer, face still burning, and laughs. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Chapter title from the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_RpSjnIy8k">June Comes Around Every Year</a> (1945)</p>
<p>
  <b>WWII</b>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transport_Auxiliary">Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA)</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Squadrons">Eagle Squadron</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire">Supermarine Spitfire</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eights">Crazy Eights</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftwaffe">Luftwaffe</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109">Messerschmitt Bf 109</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas">Avgas</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_F.2_Fighter">Bristol F.2</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Tiger_Moth">de Havilland Tiger Moth</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Blenheim">Bristol Blenheim</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherimoya">Eshta / Cherimoya, or Custard Apple</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon">Kaka / Persimmon</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Hudson">Lockheed Hudson</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://chicvintagebrides.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/mary-pickford-21.jpg">Mary Pickford</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_shall_fight_on_the_beaches">"We shall fight on the beaches."</a>
</p>
<p>
  <b>Star Wars</b>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Obas_Rebel_Alliance_base">Obas (rebel base)</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Norik">Norik</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Balmorra">Balmorra</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ransolm_Casterfo">Ransolm Casterfo</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rebel_outpost_(Taul)">Taul (rebel outpost)</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nentan_checkpoint_base">Nentan checkpoint base</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rebel_base_(Kile)">Kile (rebel base)</a>
</p>
<p>Rey's sunglasses were inspired by <a href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/ferry-pilot-of-the-ata-in-the-cockpit-of-a-supermarine-news-photo/153078049">this photograph</a> of an ATA pilot in the cockpit of a Spitfire in September 1944.</p>
<p>Leia's piloting career is based on two real female pilots, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Marvingt">Marie Marvingt</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymonde_de_Laroche">Raymonde de Laroche</a>.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. it's only a canvas sky</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="font-date">
it's only a canvas sky<br/>
  <strong>10 July 1940</strong>
</p>
<p>“Okay,” Rey murmurs, peering from the cockpit, then back to the map balanced on her knees. “That should be—yeah, okay.” </p>
<p>Beneath her the railway line snakes through countryside, a spindled curve cutting across fields and through towns. She’d followed the river from Coventry, taking off from the factory airfield and tracking the Avon past Warwick and Stratford and Gloucester. Now she’s banked inland, keeping sight of the rails to navigate. The ATA insisted on thirty cross-country flights on fixed routes before they’d let her ferry even a Moth, but Rey will admit the training works; Britain unfolds in her memory like an anatomical drawing, charting the veins and nerves of its railways and rivers and Roman roads. </p>
<p>The Bath stone and slate roofs of the village glow in the sun, a shining marker telling Rey where to begin her Hurricane’s descent. Crait, like so many other places, has gifted its name to the base, and she aims beyond it, for the fifty acres of what was once noblemans’ land. Aircraft taxi slowly around the lawns like ants. The people are even smaller. </p>
<p>As she pushes the Hurricane’s cockpit hood back and locks it open, Rey’s lungs inflate and her heart lodges in her throat. She can feel the smile stuck to her face, a gift only to herself. She loves flying so much that sometimes she almost feels guilty. This is a war, after all.</p>
<p>Brake pressure first, and then she reduces her speed to 120mph, mentally reviewing the checklist—undercarriage, propellor, flaps—before slowing again for her approach. </p>
<p>The Hurricanes are still coming off factory lines with no rudder authority under about 60mph, and Rey grinds her teeth, concentrating as she pulls the control column back. The ground races up beyond the blur of the propeller blades until the grass rushes along beneath, the manor looming in the right-hand field of her vision. A few feet from the ground Rey tilts the aircraft, bringing the landing gear level, giving just a touch of throttle at the last minute to keep it straight—and then she’s bumping gently over even ground until the plane slows and rolls to a stop. </p>
<p>She breathes out, lets the engine idle, holds the cut-out until it stops. </p>
<p>“Well done,” she says to the Hurricane, patting the instrument panel. </p>
<p>Her heart has beaten steadily all through the flight, a gentle drum to keep pace with. Now it jumps into her throat, as though it’s been waiting for free brain space to remind her of where she is and who will be here. </p>
<p>
  <em>Flight Lieutenant Solo, I take it?</em>
</p>
<p>The rows of aircraft on the lawn look depleted by roughly a third. Manoeuvres, Rey tells herself, or patrols, as she untwists and climbs out of the cockpit. When she peers into the sky it’s empty, no hint of engine whine or buzz. Her heart jumps again, into her mouth this time. She’d know if they lost an entire squadron. Someone would tell them. And they’d have to replace twelve planes. But still. The worry is always there.</p>
<p>Rey leaves the RAF engineers to their latest sweetheart, tries not to look like she’s dawdling up to the manor house. She scans the waves of blue as men and WAAFs criss-cross her path, but nobody sticks out. Had he really towered above his compatriots, or has Flight Lieutenant Solo only taken up that much space in her memory?</p>
<p>Some of the WAAFs look at Rey as she walks by, gazes grazing her trousers before they smooth down their own skirts. Rey considered the Women's Auxiliary Air Force first, staring hungrily at the posters on the tube; but the recruiting officer had scrunched up her face and laughed as she said, “don’t be silly, WAAFs don’t <em>fly</em>,” and Rey had left there and then. </p>
<p>Now she smiles, gives a little awkward nod that most of the women return. Even when planes are the common denominator, she finds herself and her uniform the object of curiosity. </p>
<p>Inside the manor is cool, red bricks absorbing the heat like a shield. The narrow leaded windows keep the sun out; in consequence the hallways are lit by the multiple bulbs of electrified chandeliers. Rey’s boots clack across the parquet floors. She shrugs her jacket back on, arms goosebumping in the sudden swap from hot to cold.</p>
<p>Group Captain Norik’s secretary is missing from her desk, but his office door is ajar, deep voices rumbling behind it. Rey takes one of the seats lined up against the wall. They’re a matching set of six, with embroidered cushions and ornate carved backs, clearly repurposed from a ladies’ drawing room. </p>
<p>She straightens her tie and adjusts her jacket, checking the embossed blue buttons down the centre and on her cuffs, as though readying for a spot inspection. There’s a tension in her shoulders she can’t get rid of, that’s been building since she cut the engine on the Hurricane. No, that’s a lie; it’s been building since Finn fell back on the grass, hands clutching his stomach to contain his laughter. Even a month and more later her face goes hot when she thinks about it.</p>
<p>The words have been on the edge of her tongue, waiting for her to be assigned another run to Crait. Rey swirls them around her mouth, thinking them over.  It feels like an apology for her hot temper and assumptions about assumptions, but equally she wonders if it’s unearned; even if not for the reason she thought, Flight Lieutenant Solo was still rude. </p>
<p>Norik’s door opens with enough force to send a breeze past Rey’s ankles, and she snaps her head around. A large, dark shape moves past her, and for a moment she thinks—</p>
<p>But it’s only a man in the same uniform, with hair that’s too short and a face that’s too ordinary. He clips by at military pace, and Rey turns back to the open door to— </p>
<p>Someone who is not Group Captain Norik.</p>
<p>“And you are.”</p>
<p>It’s not a question, it’s a statement, as though the answer has already been given. <em>Someone I don’t have time for</em>.</p>
<p>“First Officer Rey Johnson.” She stands. “I’ve just delivered the Hurricane, Sir.”</p>
<p>The man frowns. His ginger hair is swept back above equally ginger eyebrows. His skin is ashen, almost waxy, like someone who’s not been getting enough sleep or sunlight. </p>
<p>“Fine,” he barks. “Come in.”</p>
<p>“Group Captain Norik…?” she ventures, following him into the office. </p>
<p>“Convalescing.”</p>
<p>Rey waits for him to elaborate, but he simply sits back at the desk and picks up a pen, scanning paperwork. The loud silence creeps on.</p>
<p>“Convalescing?” she prompts. It’s a little insubordinate but if they’d wanted her respect, the RAF should have let her fly their planes; <em>really</em> fly them.</p>
<p>Another second of nothing. Then the man leans back and sighs theatrically. </p>
<p>“Group Captain Norik sustained injuries in a badly landed Whitley. As such I am now in charge of this base and of signing that chit in your pocket.” He holds out his hand, eyes narrowed. “I hope that explanation is comprehensive enough.”</p>
<p>Rey wants to let the silence drag out again, stealing the power; but she eyes the telephone on the desk and reminds herself that it would only take a phone call for this Wing Commander, with the telltale three blue stripes on his cuffs, to get her grounded for a month. The ATA are civilians walking a fine enough line with the RAF already; being a woman makes it doubly so. </p>
<p>“Perfectly.” She takes out the chit and sets it on the table for him to sign. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>He checks the document over, brows bent in a permanent scowl, then signs and hands it back to her with a sharp nod that appears to be a dismissal. Rey breathes very deeply and leaves the office.</p><hr/>
<p>It’s a cliche, Ben thinks as they cross checkerboard fields, but England is an oddly comforting sight. It’s been a low-flying kind of day; cruising along the coast of France, firing on gun positions between Buologne and Tingry, chattering at each other over the radio without much to occupy them. There’d been two Me 109s silhouetted on the horizon, but by then fuel reserves were low and Poe had elected not to pursue. Now 77 Squadron are rapidly approaching RAF Crait. Even over the crackle of the R/T, Ben can tell everyone is restless.</p>
<p>They land and line up their Spitfires, dictate their Combat Reports, then gather in the Dispersal Hut. The prefab walls and floor are white-washed timber, and fixed flat along the cross beams are sheets of corrugated iron for a ceiling. The windows are large, four sets of triple-panelled thin glass that would, were they not so dirty, keep the room bright. </p>
<p>“How about that ammunitions dump, huh?” Snap paces, miming the glide and dive of his Spit. “Like the Fourth of July.”</p>
<p>A nondescript shack, not a soul for five hundred yards either side, caught in the sweep of Snap’s guns. It went off like fireworks, barely giving them time to escape the blast radius. </p>
<p>“Wha’d’ya reckon,” Prindel says. “Mortar? Tank ammo?”</p>
<p>“Mortar,” someone chimes in. “For sure.”</p>
<p>“Are you kidding? If that was mortar we’d be in pieces.”</p>
<p>Ben leans against the wall, watching. There are plenty of chairs, a furniture mish-mash of peeling upholstery and tattered wicker, but he still feels the flight in his legs, wants to retain it for as long as possible. The remembered <em>whoosh</em> of take-off, the stomach-churn of a well-executed loop. Ben loves flying so much that sometimes he feels guilty for it.</p>
<p>The voices merge, just as the stories do, and Ben’s mind wanders out into the sun. Usually his head would be in the clouds, but today something tugs him earthwards. There’s a delivery, he knows, a Hurricane to replace one with a wing sheared off three days prior. </p>
<p><em>Don’t be an idiot</em>, he tells himself. There are over one hundred pilots in the ATA. It could be anyone.</p>
<p>Or.</p>
<p>“I’m…” Ben says to the room at large, too low to be heard. He waves his hand vaguely. “I’ll just be…” </p>
<p>As he emerges Ben blinks against the sun. Today the English summer is warm enough to be spring in Burbank, and he turns his face up to it, closes his eyes. Clear skies and hot weather still make Ben feel he should be in a biplane, watching the back of his mother’s head as they climb over the Los Angeles Basin.</p>
<p>He checks his watch. Three in the afternoon. Five thousand miles away, she’ll just be waking up.</p>
<p>Ben clears his throat against his own thoughts and starts walking, feeling more awkward than usual for his lack of direction. It’s easy to be graceful in a plane; on Earth he’s always tight and heavy, bruising around like there’s lead in his limbs. </p>
<p>He rounds a corner, finds himself confronted with the bustling lawn-turned-airfield, and there she is.</p>
<p>Shock ricochets—how was it that easy to wish her into existence?—but even with First Officer Johnson’s back to him, he knows it’s her. Maybe from the set of her shoulders, or the way she’s watching the sky; all the details she burned into his brain the first time.</p>
<p>He rationalizes that it’s because of the uniform; she’s impossible to miss in those pants.</p>
<p>Ben stands rooted to the ground and wonders what exactly to do. He’s been turning over all the things he meant to say, should have said—<em>that’s not it at all</em>—even as some little part of him is hurt. <em>You clearly disapprove of women flying planes</em>. But Ben’s been judged one way or another all his life. He can cope with one more judgement, as long as he can correct it.</p>
<p>The decision is removed from his hands. She glances casually over her shoulder and catches him, a double-take that locks their gazes, and Ben’s stomach flips like he’s just done a high-g barrel roll.</p>
<p>He expects her to scorn him, to turn away—but she <em>waves</em>. </p>
<p>It’s a hesitant thing, thumb still tucked into the fold of her elbow as she moves her hand back and forth, but to Ben it might as well be forgiveness from God. The corner of his mouth tugs up, and in return First Officer Johnson beams. </p>
<p>Ben has flown upside down, has dived in a straight line towards the Earth, has bailed out of broken aircraft; but none of that has ever left him so winded.</p>
<p>It takes about ten seconds for her to reach him, time passing in slow motion and at high speed. Without quite thinking Ben straightens his spine and shoulders, clears his throat like it’s an address from a Commanding Officer.</p>
<p>“Hello,” she says. Her voice is as nice as he remembers; nicer, even, now that her words aren’t cut like shattered glass. </p>
<p>“Hello.”</p>
<p>A pause.</p>
<p>“I’m just waiting for the taxi plane. On good days they send an Anson around to pick us all up.”</p>
<p>“Oh. That’s nice of them.”</p>
<p>Every word in the English language sticks on Ben’s tongue, reviewed and discarded as inadequate. Perhaps First Officer Johnson feels the same; she rolls onto tip-toe and back, mouth opening and then closing again, arms uncrossed to let her fiddle with the knot of her tie. </p>
<p>“I didn’t mean—” Ben begins at the same time as she says, “I made—”</p>
<p>“No,” he says. “You go.”  </p>
<p>She squints one eye, lips pursed as she looks beyond his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Last time, when we met, I…made assumptions. I accused you of an attitude I had no proof of and—that was wrong. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Ben scrambles for something less stunned. “That’s—” <em>Not what I expected you to say</em>. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>First Officer Johnson scuffs her boot on the gravel. “I didn’t realise—that is, I didn’t know who you were.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” again, and Ben’s frustration with himself spikes, curdling with—what, disappointment? </p>
<p><em>Yes</em>, the inner layers of his consciousness whisper. <em>Defined by your family again instead of yourself</em>.</p>
<p>He pushes it away (<em>it’s not her fault</em>) and adds, “My mom taught me to fly.” </p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>Her expression glows. It works on his disappointment like a salve. Ben nods, and First Officer Johnson whistles, the low trill of the truly impressed, before something wistful washes over her.</p>
<p>“That must’ve been wonderful.”</p>
<p><em>Alright, now, orient us into the wind and throttle up but—gently, Ben, gently—there you go, that’s perfect</em>—<em>here we go— </em></p>
<p>“It was certainly a thorough and dedicated education.”</p>
<p>Her mouth quirks, with what he’s not quite sure. The conversation turns concave, sinking in the middle as momentary understanding lulls, and Ben kicks himself. <em>You had something to say</em>.</p>
<p>“I was rude to you last time. I was…disrespectful, and I apologize. I was—” </p>
<p><em>Stunned stupid by you, by</em>—well, all of it. The sun in her hair and the life in her eyes and the way she’d handled that Spitfire. He should tell her that, because Poe was right; it really was an excellent landing. </p>
<p>Instead Ben clears his throat for the thousandth time. “I’m not very good at talking to new people.”</p>
<p>“No. No, you really aren’t.”</p>
<p>Panic pierces Ben— </p>
<p>She laughs. It can only be described as audacious; a loud, warm vibrato that crinkles her eyes and inspires that beautiful wide grin. </p>
<p>He’ll be foolish forever if it makes her smile this much.</p>
<p>“It’s alright,” she says. “Secretly, neither am I.”</p>
<p>And then.</p><hr/>
<p>The siren is subdued for two or three seconds, and then it’s <em>everywhere</em>, blasting from air raid cylinders hand-cranked by WAAFs, hair flying where they’ve run from the Ops room in the cellars. First Lieutenant Solo visibly tenses in front of her, like a greyhound at the starting line, and Rey knows what this means. </p>
<p>“Ben!”</p>
<p>The shout is followed by footsteps on gravel and the blur as his squadron stampede past. She recognises Dameron as he slaps the First Lieutenant—<em>Ben</em>—on the back and shouts, “Luftwaffe raid in the Channel, 32 Squadron are saying sixty bombers—”</p>
<p>Dameron keeps running. Ben stares after him and then, inexplicably, looks at Rey, as though they have more important unfinished business. </p>
<p>Rey touches his arm. “Ben, <em>go</em>.”</p>
<p>It shakes whatever has dazed him. He nods once, sharply, holding her gaze like it’s the only thing in the world. Then he races away from her. </p>
<p>A thread tugs inside Rey’s chest, a need that’s sudden and strong. Before she can stop herself she shouts through the noise.</p>
<p>“Ben!”</p>
<p>He turns, still running, pace slowed. </p>
<p>“It’s—it’s Rey. My name, it’s Rey.”</p>
<p>He’s lost her voice in the fray, he must have, it’s so loud—</p>
<p>“You should know, Rey,” Ben shouts back, and her own name makes her heart thud even as her brow furrows, <em>what</em>— “It really was a beautiful landing.”</p>
<p>Dameron in that sweeping bow. <em>Ma’am</em>. Unbidden, her smile blooms, and she touches her lips as though to contain it. Not the time, she berates herself. Not the place.</p>
<p>Ben climbs into his Spitfire, ground crew still untangling it from refuelling lines. Others watch too: engineers interrupted in their work; lingering WAAFs; a member of household staff who can’t be older than sixteen, clutching a bucket of peeled potatoes to his chest, eyes saucer-wide as the Spitfires taxi and then take off. Rey follows until they’re dots on the horizon.</p>
<p>The sirens are long silent by the time she notices. RAF Crait goes back to its business save for the space where thirty-six aircraft used to be; 77, 80, and 83 Squadron will be over the Channel by now. </p>
<p>“Sorry,” the taxi pilot says when he arrives. “Got delayed. Every Squadron in No. 11 Group seems to be up there.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t know the other ATA pilots in the passenger seats, but it’s a relief; Rey’s mouth is grimaced by stress, and she only wants to look out of the window. </p>
<p>Three stops later the sight of Endor washes calm through her, even if the landing is a little bumpy (<em>you applied the brakes too early</em>, she wants to tell the pilot, but keeps her mouth shut). She should take her things back to their billet, wash the scent of high-octane fuel from her hair. Instead she creeps to the Ops room, pushes the door ajar. </p>
<p>The ATA isn’t running Ops like the RAF; they’ve no giant maps dotted with push pins or tables filled with military building blocks to move around like toys. There are four telephones, two large desks, a wall full of files, and half-empty mugs of tea. And yet, Rey thinks, they’re working as hard as anybody.</p>
<p>Rey catches Rose’s eye through the gap and gestures.</p>
<p>“What’s wrong?” Rose asks at the door.</p>
<p>“Nothing, I just—could I ask a favour, if it’s okay?”</p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p>“Could you…I know we’re not much in the loop but if there’s a chance you could find out what happens to 77 Squadron—”</p>
<p>Rose’s eyebrows go up, but she doesn’t press.</p>
<p>“Sure. I’ll do what I can.”</p>
<p>A weight Rey hadn’t noticed eases a little. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“You sure you’re okay?”</p>
<p>“I’m fine. It was just a long day.”</p>
<p>“Well, if you’re sure. I’ll see you later? Back at billet?”</p>
<p>The idea of dealing with Plutt right now feels worse than it should, even if Rey has the comfort of knowing Paige will already be tucked into the attic bedrooms of their lodgings. </p>
<p>She shakes her head. “I thought I’d stay. Sit in the mess for a bit, clear my head. Too much flying.”</p>
<p>It’s a lie and they both know it. There’s no such thing.</p>
<p>But Rose, wonderful, understanding Rose, only reaches out to squeeze Rey’s hand once before saying, “I’ll meet you at the end of my shift,” and disappearing back into the Ops room. </p>
<p>Rey wanders the halls, meandering even though she knows the way, until she reaches the mess. It’s quiet, just a few of her colleagues reading newspapers or playing cards. They nod and wave but leave Rey to herself, and she sits on a chair by the window to look at the forest. </p>
<p>She feels—restless, Rey realises, same as when she’s been on the ground too long. There’s a sickly feeling sloshing around her insides; guilt. How bloody selfish to call after him in the middle of a <em>raid</em>, for god’s sake. No matter how much she rationalises that his Spitfire was still covered in wires and fuel lines and ground crew, that it wouldn’t have taken off any sooner, she can taste the guilt beneath her tongue. </p>
<p>And yet. A need, so sudden and sharp, to make sure that he knew her name, because people who climb into Spitfires don’t always climb out again. </p>
<p>Rey must sleep. She jolts awake in an empty mess hall with the evening outside dimmed and lengthened, her forehead pressed to the window. When she leans back there’s a smudge, and she rubs at it with the soft part of her curled fist. </p>
<p>“Sorry,” Rose says, door hinges squeaking as she opens it. “The shift ran late.”</p>
<p>“S’okay. I dozed.”</p>
<p>“Well, while you were sleeping, good news. 77 Squadron returned from duty with all accounted for.”</p>
<p>It puffs Rey’s lingering drowsiness away like air through smoke, and she exhales, a whoosh of breath taking her by surprise. The weight eases again, more this time.</p>
<p>“That’s—okay, good. Thank you, Rose.”</p>
<p>Outside it’s still warm enough to carry their jackets. Neither of them speak as they cross the tarmac and head down into the country lane, starting the mile walk back to billet in comfortable silence. Birds chirp and peep in the trees that arch overhead, and there are wildflowers in the hedgerows. Nature goes on as it ever has.</p>
<p>“Any particular reason for 77 Squadron?” Rose asks. Her voice sounds far away, like she’s thinking of something else. Back home in San Diego, perhaps, with Mr and Mrs Tico and the family dog.</p>
<p><em>Any particular reason?</em> Rey thinks of Ben Solo, of the way he'd said her name, and wonders the same.</p>
<p>“Oh, I’ve just—made some friends there. You know what it’s like. They’re good people. I want them to be safe.”</p>
<p>Rose nods. She understands. In times like these, they all understand. </p>
<p>“You’ll see them again,” Rose says.</p>
<p>Another wait, days and weeks of staring hopefully at the Ops board until her name is paired with Crait again. But that’s alright; Rey’s always been good at waiting. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Chapter title from the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndxAZfJxfy8">It's Only A Paper Moon</a> (1933; recorded by Ella Fitzgerald in 1945)</p>
<p>10 July 1940 is given by British forces as the official start date of the Battle of Britain. RAF squadrons <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanalkampf#Convoy_Bread">engaged the Luftwaffe over the English Channel</a>.</p>
<p>
  <b>WWII</b>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Auxiliary_Air_Force">Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF)</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Whitworth_Whitley">Armstrong Whitworth Whitley</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_commander_(rank)">Wing Commander (rank)</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/raf-combat-reports-1939-1945/">WWII combat reports</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdHBCnClcR4">High-g barrel roll</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Anson">Avro Anson</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/6UQAAOSwdB5dd7zI/s-l400.jpg">Hand-cranked air raid siren</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._11_Group_RAF#Second_World_War,_1939_to_1945">No.11 Group</a>
</p>
<p>
  <b>Star Wars</b>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bollie_Prindel">Bollie Prindel</a>
</p>
<p>The <a href="https://antiquesworld.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/74641.jpg">chairs</a> Rey sits on.</p>
<p>An example of a <a href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/dispersal-hut-of-the-american-eagle-squadron-a-division-of-news-photo/507236880?adppopup=true">dispersal hut</a>. </p>
<p>R/T was the shorthand for the 'radiotelephone' used by pilots to communicate with each other and the ground.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. don't sit under the apple tree (with anyone else but me)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter has a <b>content warning</b> for brief mentions of child homelessness. If you want to avoid this, skip from <em>“That girl, she was—</em> to <em>Ben has the overwhelming urge to apologize</em>. See the * in the end notes for a description of what happens in between.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="font-date">
  don't sit under the apple tree (with anyone else but me)<br/>
<strong>21 August 1940</strong>
</p>
<p>“Flight Lieutenant, I can predict the weather for you but it is unfortunately beyond my power to change it.” The woman in front of him smiles, or some approximation of it. Her mouth stretches like rubber, built with annoyance. “So you’ll just have to wait.”</p>
<p>Ben doesn’t bother looking up. He knows already that the cloud cover is thick and gray, the same front which followed him from France. He’d watched it in the Spitfire's round rearview mirror, advancing as steadily as an army towards the blue sky ahead. </p>
<p>“Of course.” He gives the WAAF—D’Acy, he heard someone say—his own perfunctory nod, then notes the rank insignia on her cuffs. Three blue stripes. A commander then, and technically, though not in practice, his senior. He adds, “Thank you.”</p>
<p>RAF Tierfon is small and boring; squat, single-storey blocks of temporary brick that lack anything which could be called character. Ben always thinks of himself as liking clean, orderly lines, no fuss or frills, but he’s never quite gotten over the feeling of standing somewhere and knowing hundreds of people have stood in the same place before you. He’d felt it as a boy in Italy, using the stone scrollwork of his grandmother’s balcony as footholds, pulling himself up to look out over Lake Como. Now he feels it on RAF Crait’s front steps, worn in the middle from medieval feet. </p>
<p>Even if not always literal, Ben respects knowing where you stand in history.</p>
<p>Technically he could sit in the Dispersal Hut with 99 Squadron, but he doesn’t want the curious eyes and the questions and, maybe, the hostility. The English pilots can be territorial—over land, over sky, over cigarettes and women—even if they express it politely.</p>
<p>There’s a row of three Nissen huts, perfect semi-circles that rest on the ground like a child’s drawing of a caterpillar. One of them has an upturned metal trough beside it. Ben sits on the makeshift bench, pulling his leather Irvin jacket tighter. The sheepskin interior is soft and warm; he hunches down into it like a blanket. He’d not needed it in the Spit; the glass canopies act like greenhouses in the summer, and the sun had been ahead of the cloud. Now, though, the temperature on the ground feels like it’s barely in the 60s.</p>
<p>“I thought this was summer,” he says to no one.</p>
<p>Ben can see his Spitfire from here, being checked over and refuelled from a bowser petrol tank. He thinks—hopes—that the rest of 77 Squadron made it back to camp; he’d lost them trying to escape the cloud, the sun on his left-hand side instead of the right, flying a looping course that took him halfway to the Netherlands to avoid it. The fuel needle had been gut-punchingly low by the time he found an RAF base on the R/T.</p>
<p>“You got a light?”</p>
<p>The accent is round and stretchy, full of glottal stops where it drops the <em>t</em>s. Compared to the <em>la-di-da </em>accents of Ben’s commanding officers, Cockney sounds like another language. </p>
<p>Ben looks up at the two LACs. “Sorry. Don’t smoke.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Alright then, we’ll, uh, leave you to it.” </p>
<p>They both look him over, as though reviewing a previously held opinion. One of them has scars on his cheeks, whether from acne or shrapnel Ben can’t tell.</p>
<p>“Actually.” Ben pats the pockets of his Irvin, draws out a thin book of matches that say MAZ’S in Art Nouveau lettering. Picked up and then forgotten the last time he’d been in London.</p>
<p>The LACs’ faces light up. They nod their thanks and take two, then gesture with their cigarettes as a perfunctory <em>don’t mind if we…?</em> </p>
<p>Ben shakes his head. They’re in the open air, he can’t stop them, and besides; he’s the odd one out when it comes to smoking. He’s never liked it; too much a reminder of the men who’d crowd around his grandfather, pipes protruding from their beards which were, like them, the echo of a previous century. Not around Grandpa Bail, with the clean shave and the pencil moustache that had been the height of fashion, and his unwavering belief in <em>doing the right thing</em>. No; around the other one, the man whom no one talks about anymore. </p>
<p>“‘Ey, look at that Moth.”</p>
<p>“Moth? Can’t be, no one’s taking off in this.”</p>
<p>“I’m tellin’ you, that’s a Moth.”</p>
<p>Ben follows the line of the LACs’ gesturing arms. It is a Moth, buzzing slowly towards them at a height of perhaps 300 feet. The camouflage paint is undercut by the yellow undercarriage and landing gear, both bright in the silver sky. An updraft lifts the plane, but the pilot (crazy, obviously, for flying in this) keeps it steady. </p>
<p>The LACs and their cigarettes drift off, and Ben turns back to his view of the daisy-covered grass, listening to the whine as the plane lands and taxis. Ben’s never flown a Moth, though he’d seen them in the ‘30s; his preference is for heavier aircraft, big enough that he doesn’t feel big himself. He thinks wistfully of the Model 9 Orion at the Burbank Aero Club. </p>
<p>Still. He’d rather be in England flying a Moth than stuck in the neverending loop of the Californian beau monde, frustrated with life and too frozen to fix it.</p>
<p>He sits in the cold until the clouds fulfill their promise. The rain is light at first, leaving tiny beads of water on the leather of his Irvin, but when he can see it bouncing off the grass Ben forces himself to move. </p>
<p>In the mess Ben is hit by the scent of burned coffee and more cigarettes. It’s busy; every stranded pilot in Norfolk must be here. He tucks his chin to his chest and hunches his shoulders, tries to get a drink as unobtrusively as possible. There are seats by the windows but it’s crowded, which frustrates him, though there’s a free chair by itself in the corner— </p>
<p>A hand, shooting up and waving like she’s ground crew and he’s landing a plane. Ben stops in his tracks and stares. First Officer Johnson—<em>Rey, that’s her name, she gave it to you so you’d better use it</em>—smiles and turns her palm, beckoning him. She’s in a window seat, given a little more berth than everyone else. The men on either side of her send furtive, unsure glances in her direction.</p>
<p>As Ben remembers how to walk and approaches, Rey grabs the nearest empty chair and places it at a 45 degree angle to her own. </p>
<p>“I knew it was you,” she says as he sits down. “I was waiting for you to notice me.”</p>
<p>Ben chokes off a laugh. Yes. He’s noticed her.</p>
<p>“My friend arranged a lift to the station for me,” Rey adds. “Apparently somebody owed her a favour. But until then I’m very glad of the company.”</p>
<p>He tries to arrange himself in the seat (too small, English chairs are always too small) and balances the coffee on his knees, taking a sip. It tastes as burned as it smells, and it’s almost too hot. </p>
<p>“Caught by the weather?”</p>
<p>She shakes her head. Ben frowns.</p>
<p>“I had a delivery.”</p>
<p>“A deliv—that was <em>you</em>?”</p>
<p>The little camo-and-yellow plane, bobbing in the crosswind like a bee. </p>
<p>“Oh, you saw?”</p>
<p>“I saw. There’s cloud cover for miles. Nobody’s taking off in this.”</p>
<p>“You did.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t take off, I landed.”</p>
<p>“Oh. On the—”</p>
<p>“Way back from a mission, yes.” He sees Rey’s eyes dart behind him, and shakes his head. “Just me. Got separated over the Channel.”</p>
<p>“Ah. So that’s why you’re on your own at the edge of the Wash.”</p>
<p>“The what?”</p>
<p>“The Wash.” She smiles. “That’s the bay you came in over, and all this lowland’s the Fens.”</p>
<p>“Those sound made-up. Like fairy story places.”</p>
<p>“And yet.” She gestures to the view; miles of flat earth in every direction, broken by farmhouses and drainage windmills. “Startlingly real for the foreseeable future.”</p>
<p>Ben laughs. It’s strangled, a surprise even to himself. He can feel the tips of his ears redden, hopes to God they’re covered by his hair. To bury it he takes another sip of burned coffee, searching desperately for footing in the conversation. </p>
<p>“So. I guess you’re, uh, familiar with Norfolk?” </p>
<p><em>Okay, too</em> <em>desperate</em>. Ben risks a glance at Rey, convinced she’ll be dead with boredom; but he only finds that small smile, the enigmatic one which puts her dimple to best use. Ben’s heart pitches around inside his chest.</p>
<p>“A place in Thetford used to sell parts for good prices back in the early ‘30s, so we’d all pile into the car and drive up. The old man there, Mr Nebit, he’d bought a farm and turned it into a workshop, bits of chassis and aileron and propellor everywhere, that type of place, you know—”</p>
<p>Ben nods.</p>
<p>“—and we’d spend all day in the barn, me and my brother, climbing over machine parts while our grandfather did the bartering.”</p>
<p>Ben’s nose is suddenly full of engine oil, his skin dusty with dry summer heat. A figure towers in the shadows of his memory, a warm hand around Ben’s tiny one. They wander the junk yard and a familiar voice asks, <em>you boys sell anything for a Rolls-Royce Falcon engine?</em></p>
<p>He pushes the scent and feeling and sound away. “Sounds like a nice childhood.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. By then it was.” Rey stirs, like she’s leaving her own head; puts on a bright expression that wants to compensate for something. “You never know, you might get rotated out here and then you can really get to know the place.”</p>
<p>“That’s the dream.”</p>
<p>The brightness softens into something more genuine. “How long until your squadron gets moved?”</p>
<p>“Hux says any day. It’s busy up there, so. They need us where we can win.”</p>
<p>“Hux. Ginger? Very—”</p>
<p>“Obnoxious.” </p>
<p>“—pale?”</p>
<p> She laughs. The corner of Ben’s mouth twitches up.</p>
<p>“Very pale, yes. That's him.” </p>
<p>“Mmm. He was—efficient.”</p>
<p><em>That’s a kindness he doesn’t deserve</em>, Ben thinks, but he’s skated on thin enough ice with his opinions already. </p>
<p>“Poe asked for an American.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure that went well.”</p>
<p>Ben whistles and mimes an aircraft spiralling to the ground. “They said we needed someone to guide us who <em>fully understands the values of the Royal Air Force.</em>”</p>
<p>Rey wrinkles her nose. “So I guess it’s not just women they have a problem with—”</p>
<p>Immediately Rey’s expression wobbles, lashes sweeping over her cheeks as she looks down. The ghosts of their old conversations hang in the air. </p>
<p>Ben wants to reach out and lift her chin, cup her jaw as he says, <em>it’s alright</em>, <em>we’ve both said we’re sorry.</em></p>
<p>He cradles his drink tightly with both hands and changes the subject. </p>
<p>“How did you learn to fly?”</p>
<p>Her blush shifts into the glow of enthusiasm. “Oh. My grandfather taught me.”</p>
<p>“Really? I figured you dropped from the sky with a Boeing manual under your arm.”</p>
<p>“Very funny.”</p>
<p>“Well. You are smiling.”</p>
<p>At that, Rey smiles wider. She shifts in her seat, leaning forward, and Ben is washed with the scent of Pears soap.</p>
<p>“He ran a flying school. I used to watch all the men and boys put their goggles on and climb into our planes, and I just <em>knew</em>. I knew I wanted to be up there. Eventually he let me go with him in an old Bif he’d had since the War—the Great War, obviously—and after that...”</p>
<p>She encompasses the present circumstances with a shrug. </p>
<p>“Here you are.”</p>
<p>“Here I am. And my brother, too. He's an engineer." She laughs, almost to herself. "He'd be a pilot but he's afraid of heights."</p>
<p>“Not you, though.”</p>
<p>“Not me. I’m fearless.”</p>
<p>Her voice cushions it as a joke, but Ben is deadly serious. </p>
<p>“Yes. You are.” </p>
<p>Rey’s mouth falls out of its smile and into a little ‘o’. Ben forges on, hoping it’s from pleasant surprise. </p>
<p>“Look,” he says. “You took off in this soup. You landed in it. And you did it all in a flimsy little Moth. I’ve seen brave men who are too afraid to do that.”</p>
<p>Now Rey has a little furrow between her brows. “But that’s the job.” </p>
<p>“Not when the cloud cover is ten tenths.”</p>
<p>“Officially, no. But the ATA does it anyway. If you need a plane, I have to get it to you. The Luftwaffe won’t wait just because I got stuck under a ceiling like that.”</p>
<p>She points out at the sky. The gray is turning a menacing blue as the clouds bulge with heavier rain.</p>
<p>“Besides,” Rey adds. “Say the men deliver two planes in this kind of weather, or three. How many do you think the women need to land to gain half the respect?”</p>
<p>The heat in Ben’s face is a memory; half-recollected shame, the confusing anger of being too young to understand why his mother was always fighting to get into places she surely belonged. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it like that.”</p>
<p>“I know you weren’t trying—” </p>
<p>“Rey. It’s alright. You don’t have to appease me. Point well made and fully accepted.” He glances at her; she’s tilted her head, hands clasped gently in her lap, and it gives Ben the confidence to believe that her anger isn’t for him. “I’ll just say that every pilot I know wishes he could manage a daisy cutter landing in this weather.”</p>
<p>Her dimple again, lighting up her whole demeanor. “You didn’t even see my landing. It could have been terrible.”</p>
<p>“Seeing one was enough to know,” he says, and it strikes him as true in ways he can barely contemplate; ways that sound like <em>at first sight</em>, like <em>forever</em>. </p>
<p>The rain catches on the windows, as heavy as it promised, filling the gap as they contemplate each other. Ben wonders if he gave himself away, if some look or tone let slip the feelings he can barely understand himself. His heart thuds; in fear or excitement, he doesn’t know.</p>
<p>Rey rolls her shoulders, drawing herself up as though she’s rousing from sleep. “I have something to ask you.”</p>
<p>Ben feels cold all over, like he’s bailed out into the North Atlantic. </p>
<p>“Shoot,” he says. </p>
<p>Rey digs in her pants pocket for a doubled-over piece of paper, then unfolds it and lays it across Ben’s knees.</p>
<p>“Is this you?”</p>
<p>She taps the paper for emphasis, poking the familiar face of the baby printed on the magazine page. Ben’s always thought this drawing was laughable. The stylized version of his mother is at the controls, hair and scarf flying from the cockpit. Fully liable, as Ben sees it, to get tangled in any number of vital aircraft parts.</p>
<p>Still. It buries itself in his ribs, a warm stab of nostalgia that makes Ben glad he’s sitting down.</p>
<p>“Where did you get this?” He picks it up, brings it to his face to study the detail. In the corner the magazine is dated 22 October 1910. The Aero Club as it was then (smaller, less moneyed, more enthusiastic) is visible in the rough sketch of Burbank beneath. </p>
<p>“I asked you first.”</p>
<p>Ben looks up. Rey is grinning, elbows on her knees and chin balanced on the knuckles of her clasped hands. </p>
<p>“I—yes. It’s meant to be me.”</p>
<p>“Meant to? So it’s not a good likeness?”</p>
<p>He turns the page around so she can see it and deadpans, “Like looking in a mirror.”</p>
<p>She laughs. “You look very sweet.”</p>
<p>“Trust me, that didn’t last long.” </p>
<p>He turns it back again. The artist took the trouble to draw his mother’s Japor ivory pendant hung up on the instrument panel, the same as always. <em>For luck</em>. </p>
<p>“Did she really take you up like that?”</p>
<p>“Like this? No. Complete exaggeration. They did when I was older, though.”</p>
<p>“They?”</p>
<p>Rey is leaning forward. It strikes Ben that her tone is almost hungry, eyes saucer-round as they chase his family history.</p>
<p>“My parents. Mom would pilot, mostly. Dad would sit in the passenger seat with me on his lap.”</p>
<p>The sound of the propeller; the sting of the wind; being strapped in close to his father’s warmth, wrapped inside the fur lining of Han’s coat. Sensations he hasn’t thought of in years. </p>
<p>“You know, I was so focused on your mum that I never thought about the rest of the drawing. And now here we are, you and I. The war’s funny like that, I think, throwing us all together when we’d never meet otherwise.”</p>
<p>The idea of never meeting Rey is sharp and unpleasant, like that cold Atlantic water. Ben flounders away from it, unwilling to drown.</p>
<p>“Seriously, I’m curious. Where did you get it? A thirty-year-old copy of <em>A Journal devoted to the</em>—” and he checks the page’s header again, “—<em>to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport</em> seems a little. Niche.”</p>
<p>“My grandfather had every copy from 1909 onwards,” she grins. “They were our bedtime stories. I remember he wrote to the editor so much they became friends. His letters were always being printed on the correspondence page. I liked that best, finding all the places it said <em>Mr O.W. Kenobi</em>—”</p>
<p>“Kenobi.” Ben’s voice slides from his mouth, flat and monotone. “<em>Kenobi</em>.”</p>
<p>“I—yes?” Rey falters. “Yes.” </p>
<p>“Your grandfather is Obi Wan Kenobi.”</p>
<p>A long pause.</p>
<p>“You know him.”</p>
<p>“Used to. A long time ago.”</p>
<p>Rey wipes her palm across her mouth, hand travelling until she’s clasping her own neck. </p>
<p>“He was my grandfather in every sense that mattered, yes.”</p>
<p>Ben exhales. Memories swirl; all those men with their beards and pipes. </p>
<p>He realizes that Rey is staring. He puts his empty coffee cup aside and, without thinking, touches her other hand where it rests on her knee. Her shoulders jump like she’s caught an exposed wire, but she twists her hand into the touch.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Ben says; for what, he’s not quite sure. “Keep going.” </p>
<p>He nods; hopes it’s encouraging. </p>
<p>“It’s just—easier,” Rey says. “Easier to say <em>grandfather </em>and <em>brother</em> than having to explain to a stranger. Not that you’re a stranger, I just—" She chews her lip. “People look at me differently once they know.”</p>
<p>“I won’t.”</p>
<p>“You don’t know that.” </p>
<p>Her voice is a cracked whisper. </p>
<p>Ben laces their fingers together. </p>
<p>“That girl who liked reading the letters. Tell me about her.”</p>
<p>Rey laughs. It’s a little wet, a little surprised. </p>
<p>“If you want,” Ben adds.</p>
<p>“No, I—I don’t mind. It’s just been a while since I had to explain this.”</p>
<p>It strikes Ben, for the first time in his life, that there are benefits to people knowing who you are. He’s always been the son of a pioneering aviator and a war hero; no one has ever made him dig through his personal history to answer simple questions. </p>
<p>“I’d like to hear it, if you want to tell me.” </p>
<p>He realizes belatedly that his fingers are still twined in hers. Before he can let go, Rey squeezes his hand and keeps hold of it, and Ben lets her. </p>
<p>“That girl, she was—<em>I</em> was very small and very alone, until I found Finn, and then Obi Wan found both of us, these two little orphans, and life became...good. Really good.” </p>
<p>Their conversation drifts back to him. <em>Sounds like a nice childhood. Yeah. By then it was.</em></p>
<p>“The cooks at the flying school would feed us, that’s how it started,” she says. “And Obi Wan was always around, he must have noticed. He’d let us watch the students as long as we sat up against the hangar wall, away from all those propeller blades. And then we just…never left. We were sleeping in the house and we had proper clothes and shoes, and school lessons from one of the boys in lieu of the training fee. And when Obi Wan decided to leave there was a never a question we wouldn’t come back to England with him, and I never returned to Cairo—”</p>
<p>“Cairo? Really?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. My parents moved there from London before the Great War, and died there, and Finn’s parents did the same from America. So, that’s me.” She smiles. “Desert scavenger.”</p>
<p>Ben has the overwhelming urge to apologize. He bites his tongue because he doesn’t know what for, or even if he has the right to.</p>
<p>“We heard Obi Wan was abroad,” he says instead. “But not where. I don’t think Egypt was on the list.”</p>
<p>“Did you know him well?”</p>
<p>“No. My uncle did, and my grandfather. They fell out at the end of the Great War. I don’t think I ever saw him again.”</p>
<p>The beard and the pipe. The shouting match at the family party, Obi Wan at the top of the stairs and Anakin at the bottom. </p>
<p>“It makes sense now,” she says. “He really encouraged me to learn about Leia Organa. <em>No better example of a woman in the air</em>, he used to say. I never considered it was because he knew her.” Rey looks up from their joined hands. The soft pad of her thumb strokes across his knuckles, and there’s that hungry look again, like she’s chasing something. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we would have met, even without the war.”</p>
<p>His heart rate has increased steadily. Now it hammers at his ribs, loud in Ben’s ears. The rain and the murmur of the mess fade away. </p>
<p>Ben doesn’t believe in fate or destiny. He’s chosen his own path and fought for it. And yet. If he knew that every choice, no matter what, had brought him to Rey, he doesn’t think he’d mind at all.</p>
<p>Smashing ceramic, and the surging <em>whoop </em>as everyone cheers a red-faced Pilot Officer and the slowly spreading pool of coffee at his feet. Rey startles and drags her hand away. The loss of it sits cold in Ben’s palm. </p>
<p>“Sorry.”</p>
<p>He shakes his head. “No, it’s okay.”</p>
<p>The volume in the mess rises, the broken teacup a highlight in a dull day. The men on either side are glancing again, less furtive now. They look between Ben and Rey, assumptions clear in their faces, and Ben feels the intimacy of a second ago evaporate like clouds. </p>
<p>Rey’s eyes dart to the clock on the far wall, then to her wristwatch. Ben doesn’t need to check his own to know it will match; all RAF timepieces are rigorously inspected for synchronicity. Ben wonders if the ATA is the same.</p>
<p>She waves her wrist—“Any minute now, I think.”—and pushes her palms against the arms of her chair to stand. Then she seems to think better of it.</p>
<p>“I’m sure there’s room,” she says. “In the car.”</p>
<p>A warm backseat, away from the rain and the annoying buzz of other people, and then a train carriage with its gentle roll and lull. They’d sit together for hours and <em>talk</em>. Ben wants so badly to say yes.</p>
<p>“Can’t abandon my aircraft. Not sure they’d shoot me, but—”</p>
<p>“Not quite worth the risk.” </p>
<p>“Almost,” he says, increasingly sure that the answer as it relates to her is <em>always</em>.</p>
<p>Rey stands. “Next time, then?”</p>
<p>Ben should ask if he can call her. He’s seen the others in the red telephone box in the village, slotting shillings and pence in and asking the operator for some girl they met the night before in London. The idea hums inside him, stuck in his throat.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Ben says. “Next time.” </p>
<p>Rey’s shoulders droop. She shifts from foot to foot. </p>
<p>“But,” he adds, finding loose threads he can hold on to. “I’ll walk you out, if you like.”</p>
<p>“Oh, no, you don’t have to—”</p>
<p>“I know. But I want to.”</p>
<p>Outside the rain has made every scent sharp, cutting their noses with avgas and mown grass. A black car trundles along the flat road, small in the distance but growing larger every second. They shelter under the lip of the roof, water dripping from the guttering in miniature waterfalls. </p>
<p>From here he can see his Spitfire, and he lets the view tick over in his head. Then, resolved, he gently touches Rey’s elbow, stealing her attention from the approaching car. </p>
<p>“I’ll be right back.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Hold on.”</p>
<p>“Ben—”</p>
<p>He ducks into the rain. It’s heavy enough now to be a miniature beating, recoiling off his jacket like bullets, pummeling his head and face. He climbs up to the cockpit of his Spit and pushes the canopy back, getting water on the instruments as he reaches inside with one arm. He searches by feel until—</p>
<p>“Ah,” he murmurs, exploring under the seat. “There.”</p>
<p>He jumps down and jogs back across the tarmac, arriving just before the car.</p>
<p>“Here.” Ben holds out the umbrella. “Take this.”</p>
<p>“What?” Rey’s eyes widen. “Don’t be—I’m about to get into the car, I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>“And the next time it rains? Which will be soon. It always rains here.”</p>
<p>“Exactly, Ben, I can’t, you might get—wow, this is a <em>really </em>nice umbrella—”</p>
<p>“I don’t need to worry about the weather, Rey. I can just fly above it.” He smiles, trying for a joke. “Please. I want you to take it.”</p>
<p>The long, drawn out crunch as the car slows and stops beside them. Rey holds the umbrella across her palms, tipping it slowly from side to side. The black silk and the ebony handle shine with rain. </p>
<p>“Fine,” she says. “I’ll take it on one condition.”</p>
<p>“Anything.”</p>
<p>“You have to stay safe so I can give it back.”</p>
<p>She looks up at him, soaked to her skin, hair beginning to plaster to her forehead, and those words circle in Ben’s head again. <em>At first sight. Forever.</em></p>
<p>“First Officer Johnson, I give you my word as a pilot of the Eagle Squadron that I will stay safe for the sake of my umbrella.”</p>
<p>For a moment there’s only the beat of rain on the roof of the car, and Rey’s smile. Ben is almost convinced that he’ll lean down to kiss her.</p>
<p>“Ma’am? Sorry to interrupt but I’ve got to get back for an Air Commodore, see, and—”</p>
<p>The driver leans from the half-open car door, eyes politely averted. Rey sighs. Ben can feel it across the wet skin of his neck and chin. </p>
<p>“Rose’ll kill me if I mess up this schedule,” she says. “I have to go.”</p>
<p>Ben steps back. The rain immediately feels a thousand times colder, even as a shaft of sun breaks through and turns everything a pale golden yellow. He offers Rey a salute, and she laughs, ducking into the car and disappearing from Ben’s sight. His umbrella disappears with her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Chapter title from the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Qx4Y_hUuE">Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me)</a> (1939; recorded by Glenn Miller 1942)</p>
<p>*Rey explains that she and Finn were orphans who were taken in by Obi Wan Kenobi, who ran a flying school in Cairo. He informally adopted them as his grandchildren and eventually returned them to England. Rey and Finn's parents both came to Egypt before the Great War, and subsequently died.</p>
<p><b>WWII</b><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissen_hut">Nissen hut</a><br/><a href="http://www.aeroleatherclothing.com/product-detail.php?id=105">1940 RAF Irvin jacket model</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_aircraftman">LAC (Leading aircraftman)</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Model_9_Orion">Lockheed Model 9 Orion</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wash">The Wash</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fens">The Fens</a><br/><a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/wicken-fen-nature-reserve/features/historic-windpump">Drainage windmill</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Falcon">Rolls-Royce Falcon engine</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pears_(soap)">Pears soap</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_International">A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport</a> (now known as Flight International)<br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_officer#RAF_usage">Pilot Officer</a></p>
<p><b>Star Wars</b><br/><a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tierfon_launch_base">Tierfon launch base</a><br/>(Mr) <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nebit">Nebit</a><br/><a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Japor_snippet">Japor snippet</a></p>
<p>You can see a Tiger Moth with its RAF colouring <a href="https://www.baesystems.com/en/heritage/de-havilland-tiger-moth---queen-bee">here</a>.</p>
<p>'Bowser' was RAF slang for a petrol tank.</p>
<p>'Bif' was slang for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_F.2_Fighter">Bristol fighter</a> mentioned in the first chapter.</p>
<p>'Ten tenths' was RAF slang for 100% cloud cover. 'Ceiling' was also a term for the same.</p>
<p>'Daisy cutter' was RAF slang for a perfect landing.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. that was my heart serenading you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>When I started posting this with the vague plan I'd update on Fridays, I had no idea that would tie in with the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII. A fortuitous coincidence indeed! Happy VE Day 🥳</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="font-date">
  that was my heart serenading you<br/>
<strong>31 August 1940</strong>
</p>
<p>Rey is beginning to regret the dress. </p>
<p>It’s not that the dress is anything less than perfectly lovely; it’s that the dress is <em>too</em> lovely. It had been a project—something to do when the weather was bad and Rey couldn’t stand to play any more bridge—but looking at it as pieces of cloth on a sewing machine and on herself in the mirror had been two completely different things. </p>
<p>“Stop worrying.” </p>
<p>Rose raises her voice above the music. They’re huddled with Paige and Finn around a table in the corner, with a good view of the dancefloor and, above its bobbing and weaving couples, the band on the far side of the room. Rey doesn’t know the song, but it’s the kind of jazz that feels rough and bluesy, played late at night on the radio. </p>
<p>She smooths the dress over her knees. The sleeves and skirt are both long and the yellow silk gathers neatly down her middle with a line of pearl buttons, but she still feels exposed. She wants to be in her uniform, same as the soldiers and sailors and airmen crowded under the club’s low lighting. She’s spent most of her life in trousers.</p>
<p>Rose raises her eyebrows at where Rey has bunched the silk in her hands. “You’ll crease it.” </p>
<p>The music swirls into something else, even more up-tempo than the last, and Rey takes heed of Rose’s firm-but-kind squeeze on her arm and lets go.</p>
<p>Across the table Finn sips a Sidecar cocktail, head and shoulders bouncing with the kick and snap of the snare drum and hi-hat. Paige is yelling in his ear, speaking with her hands. He glances at Rey and raises an eyebrow. <em>Okay?</em></p>
<p>She nods back. Finn’s eyebrows raise higher. Rey nods again. <em>Really</em>.</p>
<p>Without warning there’s a sharp elbow in her side and Rose’s voice, a conspiratorial hiss that sounds like <em>looklooklook— </em></p>
<p>MAZ’S is crushingly busy, sweaty bodies everywhere in the dark basement club, but Rey can still tell that someone has come to stand in front of her. Rose smiles serenely at the interloper, betraying nothing of the way she nudges Rey’s shin under the table. Her smile begins to set, a rigor that says, plain as day: <em>turn. around</em>.</p>
<p>Rey sees the uniform is khaki before she’s even halfway to facing him, and her heart is still sinking as she nods politely. The soldier smiles, handsome and sweet, and when he speaks his accent lilts with the Scottish Highlands.</p>
<p>“Buy ye a drink, miss?”</p>
<p>She can feel Rose’s hand curled over the edge of her chair, the misplaced hope in her friend’s frame. <em>Let somebody take you out</em>, Rose had said, showing Rey how to wind the bobbin on the sewing machine. <em>You’re allowed to have fun</em>.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Rey says, and just from her tone the soldier's face falls, “—but I’m not, uh, I’m not sure I’m drinking tonight.”</p>
<p>Rose glares daggers (<em>what are you doing?!</em>) and the soldier twists his hat in his hands. He gives a little accepting nod and a wave, colour in his cheeks, and Rey feels vague guilt twist in her gut as she and Rose watch him weave away. Three months ago she might have said yes. Ten days ago Rey realised that she wouldn't.</p>
<p>Rose’s chin lands on her shoulder, her arm falling from the back of the chair to hang around Rey’s waist. When Rose sighs it tickles over her ear, and Rey laughs.</p>
<p>“I know, I know. But I’m already having fun.”</p>
<p>The music switches again, and Rey taps her foot, watching the band, who look like they’re having as good a time as everyone else. Her eyes scan the crowd without really seeing them. </p>
<p>Pretending it isn’t about Ben Solo might be easy, or it might be hard, but Rey hasn’t bothered to lie to herself. To see him at RAF Tierfon had been to acknowledge that he existed outside the bounds of the airfield at Crait, and then—then he’d reached inside her chest and she’d willingly given him whole parts of her secret self. Knowing that Ben might be anywhere Rey is, carrying that knowledge with him, has made him into an inescapably real person.</p>
<p><em>A person you think about every day</em>, her mind whispers, the devil on her own shoulder. Three long months: every morning at the Ops board, searching for Crait; every landing; every lunchtime with burnt coffee, remembering how small the cup had looked in his hands. </p>
<p>Every evening, standing in her tiny box room in her pyjamas, listening to night raids and wondering if the engines roaring overhead are his. </p>
<p>Broad shoulders catch her gaze in the gaps between dancing bodies, and Rey’s heart falters and starts up again faster. She’s in perpetual high alert, mistaking shadows for the things she wants them to be. Every man with that frame is a false flag, and it’s starting to get annoying. </p>
<p>But.</p>
<p>The flash of Air Force blue, saturated by reflections of gold light from the band’s instruments, and a hand coming up to push back thick, dark hair as he walks a slow path along the edge of the crowd.</p>
<p>Rey tenses up. Rose jolts from their embrace and frowns a question at her, but it’s lost in Paige leaping from her seat and waving in that exact direction. The fringe on her dress sways with the movement.</p>
<p>“That’s him,” she says, as a man with a round face and stubble waves back, grinning. “Can you believe it’s the guy I won the beer off? Snap!”</p>
<p>The man—Snap—begins to hustle through the crowd. Rey can see the signature wayward curl on Poe Dameron’s head, the leader of a group who follow him like ducklings. Behind him and Snap are several men she recognises from 77 Squadron. And Ben; the full stop to their party. </p>
<p>For a moment he is completely still, staring at her. Rey’s heart hammers in her throat. When he does move, Ben keeps her gaze for every step, and it slows time, stretching it between them like a ribbon. </p>
<p>Snap greets Paige with friendly enthusiasm, returned by her in kind, and everyone shuffles around the table through shouted introductions. Rose is watching Rey with the same direct gaze she gives to her work, and Rey is helplessly pinned by it.</p>
<p>“Johnson!” Poe wraps her in a hug, then grabs her shoulders to hold her at arm’s length, grinning. </p>
<p>Rey looks at the others. “We’ve met.”</p>
<p>Poe laughs, easy and bright. Snap is just as friendly, exchanging kissed cheeks and smiles. The men she’s met wave; the ones she hasn’t say hello.</p>
<p>And then there’s Ben, standing close enough that Rey tilts her head up to look at him. </p>
<p>His eyes are dark in the basement club lights, inscrutable at first; but they drift over her face, returning to her eyes and her mouth, and Rey wonders if she’s learning to read the line between his brows, the crease in the corner of his lip. </p>
<p>“I didn’t know you liked to go dancing,” she says. </p>
<p>“I don’t.”</p>
<p>He has to lean over to speak in her ear. His voice feels deeper than the double-bass vibrating away in the background. </p>
<p>“At least,” he adds. “Not usually.”</p>
<p>A light touch on her shoulder, and a warmth she knows better than anybody in the world.</p>
<p>“Rey?”</p>
<p>Finn filters past the white noise, dragging her out of the fog like he’s on a delay. Rey blinks, splits her gaze between them. Finn has reserved a minor frown for Ben. </p>
<p>She touches Finn’s hand. <em>It’s okay</em>. </p>
<p>A raised eyebrow. <em>Really? </em></p>
<p>Her own words from that first day come back to her. <em>Like my existence was an offence to his entire being. </em>She almost winces.</p>
<p>Rey nods. <em>Really</em>.</p>
<p>Finn scans her face. Rey can see Ben’s eyes moving between them, watching the exchange.</p>
<p>“We’ve met, haven’t we?” he says. “RAF Ki—” </p>
<p>“Kile, yeah.” Finn holds out his hand. “I fixed that faulty spark plug.”</p>
<p>“Finn. I remember. Quickest I’ve ever seen it done.” He shakes. “Ben Solo.”</p>
<p>A little upkick in the corner of Finn’s mouth. His posture softens. </p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“I told you about Finn,” Rey says. "At Tierfon."</p>
<p>Ben nods, washed in understanding. </p>
<p>More chairs are commandeered. Finn, apparently satisfied Rey is content, joins a conversation about Type G fuse boxes. They are left alone, the only two still standing.</p>
<p>“So.” Rey gestures to the table. “Should we, uh, sit—”</p>
<p>“Would you like a drink?”</p>
<p>Ben is fierce, voice cut like an insult. He takes a breath after his own words and then presses his lips together, brow creased, looking miserable. Rey’s heart soars. </p>
<p>“Yes.” She nods. “Yes, I would.”</p>
<p>Behind her, Rose gives a thumbs up and mouths <em>finally!</em></p>
<p>It’s difficult to move, busy even for a Saturday night. They inch across the floor towards the bar, and Rey trails Ben’s hand, wondering whether to reach out and hold it. <em>So we won’t lose each other</em>, she reasons. </p>
<p>Rey ignores the impulse and keeps both of her own curled against her chest, ducking through the crowd shoulder and elbow first.</p>
<p>“Jim Beam, neat,” Ben tells the bartender. “And a...?”</p>
<p>“Gin rickey.”</p>
<p>“A gin rickey.”</p>
<p>They don’t talk while the bartender mixes. Ben takes great interest in the alcohol-sticky bar, hands in his pockets. Rey is stabbed with sudden insecurity, even as her logical brain chants <em>he </em>asked <em>you</em>. Hadn’t they left this step-forwards step-back awkwardness in the dust of their apologies?</p>
<p>Ben pays, and the bartender slams down a squat tumblr of bourbon and a tall glass for Rey. Ben slides Rey’s across to her, raises his own in a silent <em>cheers</em>. The gin and lime juice and club soda are cool and refreshing on her tongue, balancing the heat of the basement and Ben’s focus. He rolls the lip of his glass back and forth across his mouth as he watches her drink.</p>
<p>Rey sets the gin rickey down, chases a stray drop off the glass with her finger, and pops it into her mouth without much thought. Ben follows it all with dark eyes, then takes a deep gulp of his bourbon.</p>
<p>“Obi Wan used to make these,” she says into the loud silence between them. </p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>“Gin rickeys. He’d drink them in the evenings. When we got a bit older he’d make them for us too.” She holds the glass up, twisting her wrist. The ice and lime clink and swirl. “The story was always, <em>I’ll have you know I used to drink these with Fitzgerald</em>.”</p>
<p>“Fitzgerald? As in—”</p>
<p>“F. Scott, yeah. Obi Wan always had fairy stories. Oh, for—you’re kidding?”</p>
<p>Ben is looking into his drink, eyebrows raised, something that might be a smirk curling his mouth.</p>
<p>“Look. Once you’re <em>in</em>,” and he pushes on the word hard, “everyone moves in the same circles. Obi Wan, my mother, my grandparents? They were in. So. I wouldn’t be surprised if he found that crowd after he left California.”</p>
<p><em>Once you’re in</em>. Rey thinks of the ATA girls who learned to fly in sporty little planes their fathers bought them, hopping from Surrey to Paris for lunch and back again; tries to imagine Ben growing up in the same world. She can only make him fit badly, a jagged edge labouring to line up with a smooth one.</p>
<p>“Well, cocktails aside, life in rural Kent was <em>not</em> fancy. We got him when it was all mechanic’s overalls and engine parts.”</p>
<p>Ben swirls his bourbon. “Sounds like the better end of the deal.”</p>
<p>Rey suddenly feels like she’s standing on some old injury, squeezing the wound without knowing how. </p>
<p>She tries to make it light, leans back against the brass rail along the bar. “Clearly none of these people backed prohibition.”</p>
<p>Ben laughs mid-sip. A drop of bourbon lands on his chin, and Rey is seized with the urge to reach up and wipe it away. Or taste it. The idea makes her shiver.</p>
<p>“You wouldn’t believe.”</p>
<p>“Why don’t you tell me?”</p>
<p>Ben runs the pad of his finger under his bottom lip, following the bead of alcohol until it’s purged from his skin. </p>
<p>“In Los Angeles County it was like prohibition was happening on the moon. I remember folks buying out whole liquor stores in Burbank at the end of ‘19 so they wouldn’t enter the twenties on the back foot. A party in the Hills was its own speakeasy. And that was just the legal stuff.”</p>
<p>“Oh?”</p>
<p>“Everything people tell you about moonshine? They mean it.”</p>
<p>“So you were mixing bathtub gin with the rum runners, huh?”</p>
<p>“You’re laughing, but—” </p>
<p>Ben opens his mouth, closes it again. He looks over his shoulder, as though anyone could possibly hear them above the music and noise. </p>
<p>“But?”</p>
<p>“You ever been to MAZ’S before, Rey?”</p>
<p>The swerve in subject matter makes her blink. </p>
<p>“Uh, no. No, first time tonight. Paige heard about it from another American girl.”</p>
<p>“Maz is an old family friend on my dad’s side. She has a place in San Fran, too, the Takodana. It’s been in the Mission District since the ‘80s. Well, my dad was smuggling liquor to Maz long before the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution.”</p>
<p>“Your—wait, your dad? The <em>war hero</em>?”</p>
<p>Ben murmurs a laugh. </p>
<p>“That medal was an accident.” Then, louder: “Why d’you think he learned to fly?”</p>
<p>Rey’s impression of Ben morphs again, this time away from the glitzy Gatsby parties of Los Angeles and into some secret space that smells of cornmeal and sugar and yeast and malt. </p>
<p>“He smuggled before then, obviously,” Ben adds. “The invention of flight just made it easier.”</p>
<p>The alcohol in Rey’s hand feels imbued with new meaning. Prohibition is nothing more than a concept to her, something that happened far away to other people and ended when she was fourteen. It hadn’t felt real. Now a man stands in front of her who has, in part, been formed by it.</p>
<p>“So you really were mixing bathtub gin.”</p>
<p>Ben laughs. </p>
<p>“My dad smuggled the good stuff too, I’ll give him that. A lot of fermented California grapes, medicinal whiskey, Canadian liquor. When he came back from Europe he and Chewie just…picked it back up again like nothing had changed.”</p>
<p>“Chewie?”</p>
<p>“Partner in crime. Literally, in their case. They’ve been friends since god knows when. Tallest man you’ll ever see.”</p>
<p>Rey likes that image; a little Ben and a man mountain hefting contraband across borders with Han Solo, the hero of 103rd Aero Squadron. The man who chased the Red Baron across French skies. </p>
<p>“Did your dad ever take you…?”</p>
<p>“With him? Yeah. Mom was busy a lot and she turned a blind eye. My grandparents lived all over, so. Dad didn’t always fly, sometimes we’d take a boat up. You know, I think it’s the only time in my life I didn’t care whether I was flying?”</p>
<p>Ben tilts his bourbon, considering the liquid as though the revelation sprang from it. Rey studies the sweep of his lashes, the tenor of his look, and when Ben sighs she feels it on her skin; realises she’s moved closer, a whisper away from touching distance.</p>
<p>“This must feel like home, then,” she says. “If you know Maz.”</p>
<p>Ben’s eyes fix on her, drift slowly to her lips. He shifts in close, bumping their arms, and neither of them move away.</p>
<p>“A little, maybe. But this place? Is significantly fancier than the Takodana.”</p>
<p>When she’d walked down the stairs and into MAZ’s this evening it impressed upon Rey a certain anarchy, with its colourful tablecloths and brightly upholstered chairs, the lamps throwing off warm light as the band played sizzling, stormy jazz. She imagines the same energy in a speakeasy crowded into the back of a soda shop, Ben in his late teens, early twenties maybe, hauling cases of illegal booze through the back door. It makes her smile.</p>
<p>“Would you like to dance?” Ben asks. </p>
<p>He’s still looking at her mouth. Rey shivers.</p>
<p>“You said you didn’t like dancing.” </p>
<p>“I said <em>not usually</em>.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” She sounds breathless even to her own ears. “Well then, in that case.”</p>
<p>This time, as they press through the crowd, Rey takes Ben’s hand.</p>
<p>It’s easier on the dancefloor (or what passes for one, anyway; unlike the fancy parquet she imagines at the Ritz or the Dorchester, the floor in front of the band is the same basement concrete as everywhere else, about which Rey could not care less). It’s heaving, pushing them close, but not so much that Ben can’t grin and twist his arm until Rey has no choice but to follow; a pirouette which loses her balance. She thuds against Ben’s chest, palms spread over the rough wool of his uniform. When she laughs he curves his arm around her back, keeping her upright.</p>
<p>On the little stage the drummer rolls into another beat, heavy and fast, before the trombone and the trumpet join in, leading the clarinet and the double bass and the saxophone. There’s an almost palpable quake across the dancefloor, a collective excitement buzzing over their heads as couples double the speed of their arms and hips and feet. </p>
<p>Rey wiggles, still caught in Ben’s embrace, and he exhales sharply. He straightens his spine, makes an almost experimental twist that’s not much more than a brief sway left to right; and then Ben grabs Rey’s free hand and flings her out into the minimal space around them. He’s got her full weight balanced just in the palm of his hand, his arm taut so that the tendons stand out. Rey shivers with fear and attraction, quite sure that the only safety net between her skull and the floor is Ben’s strength. He tugs her back in, swings her to his other side, and Rey barely has time to process it; finds herself simply following the relentless beat with all of her limbs. </p>
<p>It’s crowded and hot and Rey’s dress is a bit long for a badly executed lindy hop, but the sweat trickling down her temples and between her breasts is exhilarating; almost as much as the press of Ben’s palms everywhere. Hands, arms, back, waist. The touches are fast and constant as they whirl each other in the tiny space. Ben is a careless dancer, fitful and jarring, like clockwork wound too fast and let go, but he’s grinning more than Rey has ever seen. She feels drunk on a single gin rickey, and achingly alert.</p>
<p>The drums crescendo, keep going, until Rey thinks she might have danced through a thousand different jazz standards. Finally there’s an indrawn breath; the crowd claps its appreciation, and the band leader chats a little back and forth, soundtracked by the heave of a hundred lungs catching up with themselves. Around them people wipe brows and put hands to hips, smiling dazedly at one another. </p>
<p>“Slower, this,” Ben murmurs in her ear. </p>
<p>The piano jangles gently, followed by the moan of the trumpet, by the sibilant cymbal. Couples on the dance floor are beginning to sway. </p>
<p>“Mmm.” </p>
<p>They’ve fallen naturally into the right hold, Ben’s palm flat against the curve of her back, hands interlinked and cradled against his chest. She can feel his heartbeat on the back of her palm. It’s fast, even as they turn in lazy circles. </p>
<p>Beating about as fast as her own. </p>
<p>“Do you want to keep dancing.” </p>
<p>It lacks a question mark, and Ben makes no effort to stop. Rey lays her head on his shoulder, nods against the fabric. She can smell the lye soap used to wash RAF uniforms, overlaid with Ben’s skin (warm like lumber, the faint trace of salt). </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.</p>
<p>“Sorry? What for?”</p>
<p>“When I saw you tonight, I was—I didn’t know what to say. I was curt and I didn’t mean to be.”</p>
<p>“It’s alright.” </p>
<p>“No, it’s—I don’t want you to think that I—”</p>
<p>Ben is tense, even in their slow hold. </p>
<p>“I don’t. Whatever it is, I promise I don’t think that.” </p>
<p>She feels the hum he gives in reply, vibrating through his chest. They turn for four bars, then eight. Then:</p>
<p>“It was your dress.”</p>
<p>“My dress?”</p>
<p>“I—it made me stupid. I couldn’t think.” He inhales deeply. “If I live for a hundred years, I’ll never forget the moment I saw you in it.”</p>
<p>Rey is glad for the brace of Ben’s body; her knees threaten to wobble, and she keeps turning by sheer force of will. </p>
<p>“That’s—thank you.” </p>
<p>The trumpet draws out its last soulful note. Rey tilts her head back. Ben’s expression is softer than she’s ever seen. All the tense lines in his face have blurred and drained, like a painting left out in the rain. </p>
<p>“I like yellow.” His mouth is close, ghosting the words over hers. “It suits you.”</p>
<p>Rey isn’t one for fairy stories. Her world has been informed by practicalities for as long as she can remember; first hunger, and then grief, and now survival in the face of advancing threat. But this man is warm and solid, a dream she can hold in her hands, and when Ben’s lips touch hers Rey lets herself believe.</p>
<p>It’s chaste for several long, drawn-out seconds—enough time for the band to begin another equally soothing tune—but then Ben tilts his head, easing the pressure before kissing her again, harder this time, more resolute. Rey sighs into it, pushes back. The wet slide of it curls heat low in her belly, like a hot wire pulling taut inside her. </p>
<p>She mistakes the cranking-up wail for the band at first, just another long note from the brass section, and barely listens; but then it goes on, and on, and on, and the part of her brain which isn’t incandescent with kissing realises it’s an air raid siren. </p>
<p>Ben sighs, his forehead against hers. </p>
<p>“Bad timing from the cavalry,” she says. </p>
<p>Her tongue feels clumsy, too big. Ben nods, wordless. Perhaps he feels the same.</p>
<p>A double-tap on the microphone fills the space where the music used to be, and people chatter around it as the band leader says, <em>ladies, fellas, we’ll have to take a break, but you’re welcome to hunker down until we get the all clear</em>. Rey scans for Finn and Paige and Rose, but the crowd is too thick, the club still too dark. Everyone is milling about with the particular ennui of those who’ve become apathetic to threat.</p>
<p>Ben rubs slow circles on her back. The touch keeps alight all of Rey’s nerves, pulling on that wire, and she hides against his shoulder, cheeks flushed and warm.</p>
<p>He turns his face into hers. When he speaks she can feel his lips brush her hair. “Guess you’re really stuck with me this evening.”</p>
<p>Rey looks up; finds that Ben still has that easy gentleness, as though for the first time in his life someone has told him <em>whatever you're worried about, it’s okay</em>. Yes, Rey decides; she <em>is </em>learning to read the line between his brows, the crease in the corner of his lip. The concept of understanding another person like that turns her heart over. </p>
<p>“I’d better make the most of it, then,” she says, and kisses him again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Chapter title from the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4263-0_wzLU">Prelude to a Kiss</a> (Duke Ellington, 1938; the linked version recorded by Sarah Vaughan in 1958).</p>
<p>
  <b>WWII</b>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidecar_(cocktail)">Sidecar (cocktail)</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://ephemeral-elegance.tumblr.com/post/132567567488/beaded-and-fringed-evening-dress-ca-1930s/amp">Paige's dress</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Beam">Jim Beam</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States">Prohibition in the United States</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakeasy">Speakeasy</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine">Moonshine</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_gin">Bathtub gin</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum-running">Rum-running</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_District,_San_Francisco">Mission District, San Francisco</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/103rd_Aero_Squadron">103rd Aero Squadron</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_von_Richthofen">The Red Baron (Manfred von Richthofen)</a>
</p>
<p>MAZ'S is loosely based on the <a href="http://www.americanairmuseum.com/place/140630">American Red Cross Club at Rainbow Corner</a>, footage of which can be enjoyed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHL-I40Czg4">here</a>.</p>
<p>Rey's dress is based on the <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/2d/dc/332ddcaefaa654465bbfb402d97426c9.gif"><em>stunning</em> gown</a> that Lily James wears in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP9eDmX0ow0">The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society</a>. Not so good for doing the lindy hop in, <em>very</em> good for getting Ben Solo to buy you a drink.</p>
<p>Ben and Rey dance their bad, sweaty <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmvKrPUo97E">lindy hop</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mJ4dpNal_k">Sing Sing Sing</a> as performed by the Benny Goodman Orchestra. Their slower dance is soundtracked by Duke Ellington's original instrumental version of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zETHnbdR_I">Prelude to a Kiss</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickey_(cocktail)#The_Gin_Rickey">gin rickey</a> was <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/12/15/6624971/great-american-writers-and-their-cocktails">favoured by Fitzgerald</a>, and is the only cocktail to appear in The Great Gatsby:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Tom came back, preceding four gin rickeys that clicked full of ice. Gatsby took up his drink. “They certainly look cool,” he said, with visible tension. We drank in long, greedy swallows.</em>
  </p>
</blockquote>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. your sighs are so like mine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for the wonderful response so far, both before and after last week's anonymous reveal; I'm having the time of my life writing this and it's so nice to know it's bringing people joy. </p><p>If you have trouble viewing the image text at the end of this chapter, scroll to the top and click "Hide Creator's Style", which should hopefully replace it with a text-only version.</p><p>This chapter has a <b>content warning</b> for one brief paragraph touching on the death of parents. If you want to avoid this, skip between <em>"Fifteen years and he sounds just the same."</em> and <em>“Yeah. I always thought so too.”</em> See the * in the end notes for a description of what happens in between.</p><p><b>Regarding dates:</b> I've tweaked things slightly having done more research on the Blitz. As such, this chapter and the last have moved from 7 September 1940 back a few days to 31 August 1940. The change isn't material, but it will better reflect the real-world timeline.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="font-date">
  your sighs are so like mine<br/>
<strong>31 August 1940
</strong>
</p><p>Ben is used to the world being big. He understands what it’s like to look upon it stretching underneath you, to find the horizon and believe you can almost see the curve of the Earth. This, though; this is a world that has narrowed until it’s almost atomic. Every cell in his body vibrates, caught up in kissing Rey. Ben is aware of himself to an extreme degree; of her even more so. </p><p>He still has their hands clutched against his chest, and when he breaks away and then returns, a slide of his mouth with hers that makes both of them sigh, Rey’s fingers tighten in his, digging into his knuckles. It makes his stomach flip over. She is everywhere, and everything— </p><p>The touch to his arm would be charitably named if he called it a <em>tap</em>. It feels more like being cuffed in a boxing ring, and Ben knows who it is before the dull pain quite registers.</p><p>“<em>Ben. Solo.</em>”</p><p>He breaks the embrace, and Rey’s lashes flutter, dazed. Ben is breathless, even as he’s trying to conjure a semblance of propriety in front of what is essentially his third grandmother. </p><p>He lets go of Rey’s hand to straighten his tie. The other he keeps at her waist, curling his fingers over her hip. She returns it in kind, arm stretched along his back. Ben’s lungs settle in his throat, making it difficult to speak.</p><p>“Hi, Maz.”</p><p>The little woman in front of him slides her large eyes between them. She’s always had a stare like a fluoroscope, peeling away his exterior to x-ray his secrets. </p><p>He clears his throat. “This is Rey.”</p><p>Despite advancing years Maz is achiningly modern in her well-cut shirt and trousers. Her catseye glasses are studded with rhinestones glinting off the lamplight, and the thick lenses make her eyes look even bigger. All the better to inspect them with. </p><p>She squints at them both before her narrowed gaze relaxes. The air raid siren pulses in the background, dulled by layers of brick and pavement overhead, but it still works as a surreal soundtrack. Ben is too dazzled with kissing and noise to feel lucid.</p><p>“Rey. Hmm. I like it. Hello, Rey.”</p><p>“Hi.” She relaxes into his side, apprehension easing. </p><p>“This is Maz.”</p><p>“Owner of this fine establishment, but you look like a clever girl, I’m sure you’ve already guessed.” Maz tilts her head. “It’s quite a woman who can get Ben onto the dance floor.” </p><p>Rey smiles. “No persuasion needed. He asked me.”</p><p>“Hmm. Quite a woman indeed.”</p><p><em>You have no idea</em>, Ben thinks.</p><p>Maz pats his arm—a real tap this time, gentle with familiarity. “It’s good to see you, Ben. Don’t stay away for so many weeks next time.”</p><p>A book of matches, picked up and forgotten about back in the spring. </p><p>“I’ll try.” </p><p>Maz begins to speak, sighs, wrinkles her nose. </p><p>“This damned noise, really. The Luftwaffe are bad for business. Where’s Charlie, the least he can do is crank up a gramophone—oh, but Ben,” and this time she taps the embroidered wings above his breast pocket. “I spoke to your mother, and now I want to speak to you. Find that bottle of tequila in my office. Rey, you can come too.”</p><p>Maz marches away in a whirl of clanking beaded jewellery, shouting <em>Charlie!</em> above the sirens and chatter. </p><p>Rey exhales; Ben feels it leave her body beneath his palm.</p><p>“I know she’s a little forthright—” he begins.</p><p>“No, no. Maz is wonderful.” Rey cups her face with her free hand. There’s color on her cheeks. “I’ve just never been, uh, caught kissing a boy before.”</p><p>She looks up at him, her eyes round and shining in the lamplight; and then she laughs, almost disbelieving, and Ben catches it inside his chest, finds that his own bubbles up and out to join hers.</p><p>“Oh god,” Rey says. “What an evening.”</p><p>She turns in his arms, leaning back into the pressure of his palm. The sudden, easy familiarity of touching her fills Ben’s head so much he has to concentrate on getting words out of his mouth.</p><p>“Do you want to? Maz’s office.”</p><p>“I don’t know. That conversation sounds personal.”</p><p>Rey has been welcome to all of Ben since the moment he saw her, but he keeps that knowledge buried under his tongue. He’s always felt every emotion as sharp as a razor, but this—this is ready to break out from under his muscles and skin, and he doesn’t want to scare her.</p><p>“Maz makes her decisions about people quickly. Clearly you passed. So, you’re welcome to watch her gently remind me that I need to call my mother. Besides,” he adds. “Anything in Maz’s office will be premium can’t-buy-on-the-market tequila. A one-time opportunity.”</p><p>“One time, huh?” Rey tilts her head, mouth curling. “You’re persuading me.”</p><p>“Good.”</p><p>The smile fades a little. “If you’re sure?”</p><p>“Yes,” Ben says, and the words feel bigger than Rey’s question. “I’m sure.”</p><p>The <em>STAFF ONLY</em> door set into the far well isn’t locked, and Ben gently shoulders it open, sliding through the gap with Rey behind. The corridor is bright and cold; they both blink, and Rey full-body shudders, the kind that rolls up through your spine and along your limbs. In the light her cheeks are pink, her lips reddened. Some deep-buried part of Ben growls with pride. <em>That’s for me</em>.</p><p>Along the corridor is the stockroom, a little staff room, a dressing room for the musicians. Ben’s been here before, once or twice, knows the one at the end belongs to Maz, though the large Boonta Eve racing banner nailed to the door helps. </p><p>As they enter a sliver of light cuts through the room, enough for Ben to find and switch on the green tiffany lamp on the desk and the floor lamp in the corner. There’s an oil radiator beside it, banishing the corridor’s cold. Just like the club beyond (just like the Takodana miles away) the office is full of rich fabrics, but in the lamps’ diffuse glow their colors are muted and the oak furniture a rusty brown. Rey is a silhouette as she pushes the door closed, the bright strip lessening until it winks from existence. </p><p>The click of the latch bolt is like a marker. Suddenly they’re alone in a small room with shadows and dark corners, with the ghosts of the places they’ve touched (the places they haven’t). Rey is leaning against the door, hands folded behind her back, watching him. The only thing between them is the desk. </p><p>“So,” Ben says, perching on its edge. </p><p>“So.”</p><p>“Finn’s nice,” he begins, for something to say; realizes that he means it. “It’s funny, how I’d met him already.”</p><p>“That’s why I knew. Who your mother was, I mean. Finn told me.”</p><p>“Ah.” He expects it to annoy him, the way it usually does, but— “So Finn’s the reason you don’t hate me anymore?”</p><p>“A little part of it, yeah. The rest you can blame on yourself.”</p><p>“Gladly.”</p><p>“He thought it was the funniest thing. Wouldn’t stop laughing. He asked me if I’d frightened you, of all things.”</p><p><em>A little</em>, Ben could say, but it wouldn’t come out right. She’d take it Finn’s way, when Ben means the feeling at the top of the rollercoaster on Santa Cruz beach, knowing the car is about to roll down the slope with him inside it.</p><p>Rey’s forehead creases, but it’s offset by a crinkling smile. Ben’s seen that expression before, on friends and acquaintances who complain about their siblings with wry smiles and big hearts. It’s always made him feel lonely.</p><p>“You didn’t frighten me.”</p><p>“Oh, well, I’ll try harder next time.”</p><p>She pushes off from the door, trails her hand along the wallpaper. There are paintings in big mismatched frames, and she stops in front of a watercolor of the Golden Gate Bridge disappearing into mist, foregrounded by the docks and sloping streets. </p><p>“Finn sounds as American as you do English,” Ben says.</p><p>“Oh, I know. Mine I can blame on Old Man Kenobi—” and the nickname strikes out at Ben, unfamiliar, “—and maybe my parents, I don’t know, but I always wondered if Finn would lose his, sooner or later. Fifteen years and he sounds just the same.”</p><p>“Perhaps it’s something for him to hold on to. A reminder.” </p><p>His own mother’s voice, warm with affection, a little sad. <em>Sometimes you sound just like your father</em>. Memorializing a parent through yourself is something Ben can understand.</p><p>“Yeah. I always thought so too.” Rey is still looking at the painting, but her gaze is unfocused, imagining things he can’t see. She shivers out of the recall. “You know it hasn’t rained once since you gave me your umbrella?”</p><p>Ten dry days, some warmer than others, a few with grounding cloud cover, and not a single drop from the sky. </p><p>“The irony is not lost on me.”</p><p>“I prefer to think of it as the universe echoing your gesture.”</p><p>Rey comes to stand in front of him, touches his hand where it’s curled on his thigh.</p><p>“I did appreciate it,” she says. “I didn’t mean to sound so hurried and hostile to the idea, I was just—warm and covered in rain, and there <em>you</em> were, looking at me like—”</p><p>She bites her lip. </p><p>“I never thought you were hostile. It felt—good,” Ben says, dragging comprehension up from his subconscious. “Good to know I could protect you. Even in a small way.”</p><p>Brave with her ongoing permission, he reaches for Rey's waist, splays his fingers over the silk. He can span the half of her (more, even) with his hand. The image is thrilling; goes straight to that primal growl.</p><p>“S’soft,” he murmurs, stroking his thumb across the fabric. Beneath it her body feels lithe and supple.</p><p>Rey breathes very deeply. </p><p>“I made it, sort of.”</p><p>“Sort of?”</p><p>“It's a cannibalised wedding dress. It was going cheap in Chapel Market, the bloke said it had come from a bomb site. Stolen or found or donated, I don't know, but Rose said I should try dressmaking to fill all the down days, and I liked—I liked the idea I could take someone's old dream and make something for myself. So I did.”</p><p>Ben can see it, clear as day; Rey amidst the hustle, soundtracked by a hundred costermongers yelling <em>two shillings a pair! </em>as she turns the dress over one way and then another. Finding hope out of ashes. The act is so radically <em>hers</em> that it steals his breath.</p><p>“I assume it wasn't always yellow.”</p><p>“No, for that you can thank the tons of greenweed I picked from the hedgerow and then had to boil in our billet bathtub.” She plucks at the skirt, rubbing its sheen between her fingers. “Yellow is an easy colour to dye from stuff in the garden, or the fields, but it wasn’t just that. It’s a happy colour, you know? A hopeful one.”</p><p><em>It suits you</em>. That’s what he’d said; realizes now in how many ways he means it.</p><p>The buttons shine with the minute shift of Rey’s breathing, a row of pearls cinching the fabric together. Ben runs the pad of his thumb down the three or four nearest to his grasp, and they quiver in their button loops. How easy it would be to twist them open if Rey wanted him to. </p><p>A rumbling boom, dampened by distance but still enough to shake the floor. Rey grabs his shoulders; on instinct Ben grasps her tightly with both hands.</p><p>“Can’t be a direct hit,” Rey says, as they both look at the ceiling. There’s no plaster dust, no cracks. </p><p>“Half a mile, maybe.”</p><p>Rey hums in agreement, still staring upwards. They’re only nuisance raids—the Luftwaffe have more strategic targets than nightclubbers, and there’s a quiet hope in London that the city will be spared—but the reminder of the world above makes Ben dizzy. Reality wants to intrude.</p><p>Tequila. That’s what they’d come for.</p><p>Ben swallows. “The, uh, it should be in the—” </p><p>He fumbles his hand along the edge of the desk, pulls open the drawer. A bottle of honey-colored añejo tequila rolls from the back to the front, clanking against the wood and rustling the papers beneath. </p><p>He points to the shelves behind them. “Up there—top left—”  </p><p>Rey leaves his embrace (<em>no</em>, his mind rebels) and the jangle of glass follows. </p><p>She returns with three tumblers, lines them up on the desk. She’s left a space between herself and Ben, an agonizing hair’s breadth, their elbows not quite touching. Every sound is loud: the twist of the bottle cap; its neck against the edge of the glass; the glug of poured liquor; the thud as Ben sets the bottle back down. </p><p>“To—” </p><p>Ben lifts his glass; lowers it a little as he thinks.</p><p>“To the colour yellow,” Rey says, raising her own. </p><p>“Yes. To yellow. The hopeful color.”</p><p>She smiles, sips; reaches for him. “The colour that inspired you to kiss me.”</p><p>This time Rey tastes of nectar, lips wet with the aged tequila’s sweetness and spice. Her arms twine around his neck, still holding her glass. Ben is vaguely aware as he gathers her up that he should try not to drop his own. He squeezes his arm around her waist harder than he means to, curving Rey’s spine—and, oh, her breasts press against his chest and <em>shit</em>, he can feel the flush pressure of her hips, her thighs—and he begins to loosen his grip; but Rey only chases the touch, holding on tighter, pushing into it.</p><p>Ben finds proper purchase to lean against the desk, and Rey fits herself into the gap between his legs. Her free hand is twining in his hair, sliding up the nape of his neck; her nails drag along his scalp, and now it’s Ben who ripples with a full-body shiver, skin bumping with gooseflesh even in the warmth of the office and his uniform. His head feels full, only able to process sensations. </p><p>Ben licks the taste of tequila from Rey’s mouth, chasing its burn with his tongue. Her moan throbs through him, straight to his c—</p><p>“Fuck,” Rey says, but it’s not the good kind; Maz’s voice echoes in the corridor, calling out to somebody—<em>you know you’re my favourite, Joe; hey, Harry, when are you back on piano</em>—and suddenly where there was heat and fabric-over-flesh there’s only air, scented by the oil in the gently grumbling radiator.</p><p><em>So much for never swearing around a lady</em>, Ben thinks.</p><p>“Right.” Maz closes the door behind her. “Where were we?”</p><p>Rey is studiously studying the painting again, gently fluffing her hair with her fingers. Ben keeps sitting on the edge of the desk, hands folded in his lap, willing awkward, hopeful stirrings to cease.</p><p>“Your friends were sending a search party but I told them I’d stolen you away,” Maz says to Rey. She picks up the tequila bottle and the third tumbler, pouring herself a glass. “Chewie brought this back last time he was in Ojo de Agua. He knows I prefer the añejos.”</p><p>The flavor is thick and sweet as Ben takes another sip, trying to forget that seconds ago he was tasting the same notes of cacao and chile pepper on Rey’s lips instead of his own.</p><p>“It’s good.”</p><p>“It should be. If he wasn’t friends with the distiller it would have been very expensive.”</p><p>In the corner of his vision, Rey’s mouth twitches up. </p><p>“Is Chewie still flying that Stearman 4?” Ben asks.</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know which plane is which.” Maz waves her hand dismissively. “If it can stay in the air that’s all I care about.”</p><p>She bustles around the office, turning up the radiator. She screws the bottle top back on with one hand before dropping it into the desk drawer, nudging it closed with her hip. </p><p>“Now, Benjamin—”</p><p>“I know, I know. I should call my mother.”</p><p>“Yes, you should, but I’ve told you that before. No, this is about the House.”</p><p>“The house?—oh, the House.”</p><p>Behind Maz, Rey mouths <em>house?</em></p><p>“Amilyn is doing her best to keep you out of the campaign, but these newspapermen smell it like blood in the water. Her supporters want to call you a war hero, her detractors want to run the same old stories about a rich kid squandering the family fortune—”</p><p>Ben winces. </p><p>“Mostly exaggeration,” Maz says to Rey; pats Ben’s shoulder. “Mostly.”</p><p>“And?” he prompts.</p><p>“She wanted to reassure you herself, but as those girls at the telephone exchange can never seem to reach you—” another pointed look, “—she passed the message on to me. Your mother’s promise, Ben. Nothing that’s within her power will distract you from the work here.”</p><p>Maz’s fingers are gnarled with age, but when she squeezes his shoulder they’re still strong. The promise echoes dully, tinged by hope because not all of them get broken.</p><p>“And yes,” Maz adds. “Campaign or otherwise, you should call her.”</p><p>It hiccups a laugh out of him, soft and blunted, a rote reaction to a conversation they’ve been having for the last decade, but—</p><p>He looks at Rey, leaning against the wall now, her shoulder bumping up against and gently skewing the frame of the painting. She’s been watching them with curious eyes, and as Maz claims her attention Rey nods, looks genuinely engaged. Ben has known Maz forever, and Rey for barely any time at all, but she fits into the mechanisms of his life like she’s always been there.</p><p>Yes. Perhaps, sooner rather than later, he should call his mom.</p><p>“Leia’s been talking about it since Mary Norton won for the Dems back in ‘25,” Maz is explaining, and the line rings in Ben’s head, ingrained. <em>If New Jersey can elect a woman to the House of Representatives on her own merits, California can damn well do it too.</em></p><p>“I didn’t know,” Rey says. “That she was involved in politics. Only about the flying.”</p><p>“Oh, it’s in Leia’s blood, just like the sky. Same for this one,” and Maz points at Ben. “Even if he pretends it isn’t.”</p><p>He snorts. “Wishful thinking, Maz. Doesn’t matter how often you say it. I’m not interested.”</p><p>“Perhaps not like that, no. But I’m old enough to know you have your grandmother’s eyes, and more of her character than you believe.”</p><p>In his memory Grandma Padmé has the hazy sheen of childhood recollection; beautiful, kind, sad. All those summers spent between Cornwall and Lombardy, between the English cottage and the Italian villa. Ben understands her as an adult only by reading history books about women’s suffrage, where photographs of Padmé stare out with his own eyes.</p><p>“And you.” Maz turns to Rey. “You have the bearing of a girl who cares about the world. What did you choose? Territorial Service? Navy Wrens?”</p><p>“Uh.” Rey sets her glass down on the desk, gathers herself. “Air Transport Auxiliary.”</p><p>Maz smiles. “A pilot.”</p><p>“A pilot.”</p><p>The stroke of the final <em>t</em> gets caught up with the shift of the air raid siren into one long, round note. The little office seems to breathe collectively, even the walls, unbound by the All Clear. </p><p>“Let’s hope that’s that.” Maz raps her knuckles on the desk in emphasis. “The Luftwaffe must have better things to do.”</p><p>Ben uncurls from the desk, sets the remnants of his tequila down. “They chase me around the sky, mostly.”</p><p>Maz, all of 4’11” and barely above his elbows, towers over him as she says, “Then you’d better chase them back, Ben Solo.”</p><p>He follows her around the edge of the desk, burned with an affection that won’t form words in his mouth. In compensation he puts an arm over Maz’s shoulders, and for a tiny fraction of a moment she leans in, smelling of sharp orange perfume like she always does. </p><p>“Alright, alright.” She pats his uniform and disentangles them, but there’s a smile creasing the wrinkles around her mouth. “Now stop drinking my tequila for free and get back out there. If you’re going to patronize my club, do it properly and spend your British wages.”</p><p>She opens the office door, spilling the corridor’s light. Already the band are emptying from their dressing room, a raucous tumult of laughter mirrored off the emulsioned brick walls. They greet Maz enthusiastically, like boys with a beloved schoolteacher. </p><p>Ben glances back, expecting Rey to be behind him; but she’s at the desk, straightening up as though she’d been leaning over it. She darts across the room to catch up.</p><p>“Rey.” Maz beckons. “Come and talk to me about flying these planes.”</p><p>Rey raises an eyebrow at him as though to say, <em>you’ll be okay</em>? Even in the echo of his curiosity Ben’s heart clutches, heady with somebody else’s concern for him. He nods; watches the back of her dress flare as she walks, as she tilts her head to listen to Maz, a half-foot shorter. <em>And how many women are there? You can all fly? And those men at the top, do they let you get on with it?</em></p><p>Beyond the <em>STAFF ONLY</em> door, people are much as they already were beneath the low lights; the bartender is even still mixing drinks. As the band funnel back towards the stage a cheer begins, sweeping through the crowd like a wave, and Maz gestures a vague goodbye before disappearing into it.</p><p>Ben smooths his hand along Rey’s shoulders, down the curve of her back. There’s a sudden nervousness in his muscles, as though by walking through that door they’ve passed between worlds and might have left the touching, the kissing, the easy familiarity behind. </p><p>She turns into him, palm over the RAF wings on his chest. “Why don’t you find the others? They know we were both with Maz, you can tell them I’ve gone to powder my nose.”</p><p>“Oh—alright.” </p><p>Rey’s frowning a little, looking past his shoulder. Ben’s insides flip-flop with the sudden fear that this whole night is just sand slipping through his fingers. He doesn’t want her expression to mean regret.</p><p>Except that Rey sweeps her hand up to his jaw, cupping Ben’s face as she kisses him, and with a sharp tug she digs something into his pants pocket. His head feels like a bomb cloud, hazy with the double sensation—and then she’s walking away, her yellow figure swallowed by shadowy khakis and blues.</p><p>Dazed, Ben feels in his pocket. It’s a piece of paper, folded small. His fingers are unsteady as he opens it. The club logo is across the top—<em>from the desk</em>, he realizes—and in the right-hand corner she’s written an address. And underneath:
</p><p class="hide"><em>Ben—<br/>
Come to my billet after.<br/>
I’ll leave the window open.<br/>
Rey<br/>
x</em>
</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Chapter title from the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEwVAV3VPw4">People Will Say We're In Love</a> by Rodgers and Hammerstein, from their musical <em>Oklahoma!</em> (1943).</p><p><b>WWII</b><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray#/media/File:Historical_X-ray_nci-vol-1893-300.jpg">A 1940 fluoroscope</a><br/>Maz's <a href="https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/furniture-lighting/tiffany-studios-dragonfly-table-lamp-circa-1-6211094-details.aspx?from=salesummery&amp;intObjectID=6211094&amp;sid=468457c0-9c5d-4a37-a12e-7479f45a8d32">green tiffany lamp</a><br/>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Dipper">rollercoaster</a> on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk<br/>Maz's <a href="https://www.californiawatercolor.com/collections/california-watercolors/products/jake_lee_san_francisco_c_1940_s">watercolour</a> by artist <a href="https://www.californiawatercolor.com/pages/jake-lee-biography">Jake Lee</a><br/><a href="http://clothgrip.com/history.html">Chapel Market</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costermonger">Costermonger</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C2%A3sd">£sd</a><br/><a href="https://www.naturesrainbow.co.uk/category/dyers-greenweed/">Dyers greenweed (Genista tinctoria)</a><br/><a href="https://www.thrillist.com/spirits/tequila/best-anejo-tequila">Añejo tequila</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stearman_4">Stearman 4</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchboard_operator">The girls at the telephone exchange</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives">United States House of Representatives</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Territorial_Service">Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS)</a><br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Royal_Naval_Service">Navy Wrens (Women's Royal Naval Service; WRNS)</a></p><p>
  <b>Star Wars</b>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Boonta_Eve_Classic/Legends">Boonta Eve Classic</a>
</p><p>The air raid sirens had two sounds: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3rP3htV0zc">Alert</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztu0M6PXp1g">All Clear</a>.</p><p>
  <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/78/0a/7c/780a7c0ad15d2241544a32cbf9552fb4.jpg">The inspiration for Maz's glasses.</a>
</p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojo_de_Agua,_Tec%C3%A1mac">Ojo de Agua</a> is the location of the <a href="https://www.sanmatias.com/us/history/">Casa San Matías</a> distillery, which has been producing tequila since 1886.</p><p>There really was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1940_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections">United States House of Representatives election</a> in 1940, coinciding with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1940_United_States_presidential_election">1940 United States presidential election</a>.</p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Teresa_Norton">Mary Teresa Norton</a> represented Jersey City and Bayonne in the United States House of Representatives from 1925 to 1951. She was the first woman member of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)">Democrats</a> elected to Congress and the first woman elected to represent New Jersey. </p><p>California's first female member of the House was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_Nolan">Mae Nolan</a>, a Republican elected by special election in November 1922 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband (a relatively common practice at the time). California would not properly elect a woman to the House until <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Gahagan_Douglas">Helen Gahagan Douglas</a> in 1944.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. then dive, dive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="font-date">then dive, dive<br/><strong>31 August - 1 September 1940</strong></p><p>If there was a carpet, it would be worn through now. As it is, the rag rug and the floorboards suffer Rey’s tread back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It feels like she’s been pacing forever, and yet when she looks at the clock only seconds have passed. </p><p>She stops in the middle of the room (if it can be said to have one; the attic space was small to begin with, and at some point in the past someone cut it into three) and bites the knuckle of her thumb. </p><p><em>Come to my billet after.</em> That’s what she’d written. The recollection of it heats Rey’s face. She’d grabbed that pen with the steady, mechanical hand of someone detached from their own actions, watching it outside her body. The impulse had overridden her, spurred by heat and touch, and now she’s waiting for the consequences. </p><p>It’s not that Rey is unfamiliar with sex. No, she thinks, starting to pace again, keeping her steps light so the floorboards don’t creak. It’s not that. She’d fumbled around a bit last summer with the lad who delivered the post, all strapping county muscle and tanned freckles, touching each other behind barns and in the shade of hedgerows. She knows what a cock looks and feels like in her palm; knows what it’s like to have someone else’s hand on her breast and down her knickers. Back then she’d even thought about letting him fuck her, because in this modern age people are less prudish about these things, and she could have gotten it over with, but—something had held her back.</p><p>As for orgasms, Rey has discovered those alone, finding the shortcuts to getting herself off. </p><p><em>This</em>, though. What is she asking him for? What does she <em>want</em>?</p><p>“An open-ended invitation,” she mutters, sitting on the edge of her bed. The ancient springs squeak. “That’s what you’ve bloody well given yourself.”</p><p>Rey eyes her dress, draped over the little chair in the corner. The yellow silk is glowing, caught in the colour thrown off by the lampshade. Unlike the dress, the pyjamas she’s thrown on (her only pair) are rayon, second-hand; okay quality but not the best, even if they’re designed to feel like silk, which they don’t. Not after taking off the real thing. They’re a dull white, embroidered with little pink roses over the box-cut shirt and long, wide pants. They’re full of loose threads, starting to wear. She’s had them since she was a teenager. </p><p>Her fingers pick at the top button. It was automatic to take off the dress, and her underwear too, part of the bedtime routine she and Paige and Rose have established between themselves. They’d all stood at the sink in the shared bathroom, brushing their teeth in the contented silence after a long night out, dreaming of the next one. Rose had almost been asleep, and Rey had feigned the same tiredness, stretching and yawning outside her bedroom as she waved goodnight. </p><p>Now Rey’s wondering if she should put the dress back on. That’s the woman he’d agreed to…to whatever-this-is with; the one who’d dazzled him enough to steal his composure. <em>If I live for a hundred years, I’ll never forget. </em></p><p>There hadn’t been time to talk after the note; she’d come back to Rose, a little drunk, speaking passionately to Poe and Finn about Hollywood censorship and the Hays Code (thankfully distracted from the questions she’ll no doubt have tomorrow). Ben had been crowded in by Paige and 77 Squadron. He’d caught her eye between the bodies of their friends, set with that same intense look as a warm day at the beginning of June—except that now she understands what it means. </p><p>“I’ll see you, then,” she’d said at King’s Cross station. </p><p>Ben had nodded, hands stiff at his sides. The laughter of the others echoed further up the platform, gifting the view of Poe giving a Rose a piggyback and Finn holding her shoes. 77 Squadron were dots of Air Force blue ahead and behind, Paige amongst them, the whole staggered group ambling like a shoal of fish with Ben and Rey in the middle. </p><p>“Yeah,” Ben had said. “I’ll see you.”</p><p>Rey flops back on her bed. She’d never considered the logistics. Crait is a train ride away, a relatively short one, and maybe if they’d courted each other properly that’s how it would’ve worked, going back and forth to see each other on days off. Except all they’ve done is move from antagonism to politeness to some strange limbo, and then fast-forwarded to the part where she takes him home. Before tonight Ben hadn’t even called her. Now it’s late and the local lines won’t be running. What does she expect him to do? Walk? </p><p>God, this is a terrible idea. </p><p>She sighs and clambers across to the window. The bed is pushed up against the wall, the lip of the sill a few inches above the bedspread, and she leans on it, looking into the night. The moon is a waning crescent in a clear sky that helps it to shine brightly. The trees at the top of the lane rustle, bringing the sweet smell of outdoor summer. </p><p><em>I’ll see you. </em>He’d never said <em>when</em>.</p><p>“This is why,” Rey says to herself. <em>This is why you held back last summer</em>. That little nagging part of her brain that is still, after all this time, worried if she lets people in they’ll leave. </p><p>She curls up on the bed, wondering if she should turn off the lamp. The house is rasping, old beams and floorboards that settle and sigh. Plutt had been awake when they came back, signalled by the crack of light around the sitting room door, the three of them creeping past to avoid their host at any cost. Plutt keeps long hours, somehow always up before them and asleep long after, griping about cost-benefit and how much the Air Ministry are paying him to put them up. Now there’s a telltale creak as he moves around downstairs.</p><p>Thank God, then, that Ben’s not coming. </p><p>Lamp off, covers thrown back, Rey lies down and stares at the ceiling. It slopes under the eaves, bubbled with ancient plaster that’s discoloured over time. She forces her breathing to even out, to begin the slide into sleep, even as her heart races.</p><p>Breathe.</p><p>Breathe.</p><p>Breathe.</p><p>Crunching dirt and gravel, the twang of bicycle spokes navigating terrain. Rey jolts upright in bed, clutching the sheet beneath her. As she listens the crunching gets nearer, quiet but insistent, until it moves from the lane and alongside the house, then stops, followed by the thud as someone dismounts. There must be a bell on the bicycle handle; it chimes as though knocked, then deadens like it’s been smothered by a palm. </p><p>Slowly, Rey moves to the open window and looks down. </p><p>In that sliver of the moon Ben is a beautiful murky shape. His hair is inky black, shining with silver light, and his uniform has been desaturated to a soft grey. As she watches he rolls a large bicycle over to the hedge that runs around the cottage perimeter, leaning it gently against the foliage. He adjusts it, nudging the front wheel with his foot, and then looks up.</p><p>Rey’s heart <em>whooshes </em>as Ben frowns, scanning the windows. She remembers that her bedroom lights are off, the whole house dark on this side, and stretches hastily for the lamp, falling back onto the mattress and fumbling with her fingertips for the switch. </p><p>“Rey?” </p><p>Ben’s voice floats up, a loud whisper. She returns to the window, pushing it further up in the frame. The wood and flaking paint squeak, grabbing his attention, and Rey leans out with a finger pressed against her grinning mouth; <em>shhh</em>. </p><p>His smile appears, and there’s that <em>whoosh</em> again, making her heart big inside her chest. Ben grabs the cast iron pipe running down the brickwork, gains purchase with his foot on the downstairs window ledge, and Rey thanks the heavens that Plutt is on the other side of the house. Ben is tall enough and the house, old as it is, squat enough that he can easily reach the next sill, pulling himself up. As he climbs up to the third floor Rey sits back, giving Ben space to manoeuvre until he ducks his head and shoulders under the open window. </p><p>“Hold on,” he says, sat on the ledge like Peter Pan, and Rey doesn’t understand until Ben unlaces his service shoes, balancing half-in-half-out of her bedroom, and throws first one and then the other past her bed and onto the floor. </p><p>“There—” he begins as they thud against the rug, but Rey claps her hand over his mouth, even as she’s trying to stifle her own laughter. Her other arm she hooks around his chest (it’s <em>broad</em>, expanding and contracting in her grip when he breathes), and she tugs. Ben willingly goes, falling back to land gently on the mattress. </p><p>Belatedly Rey realises her hand is still over his mouth. She lets go, staring down at him. He’s bracketed by her body; the heel of her other palm digs into the mattress, her side pressing into the curve of his ribcage. Ben’s hair is stark against the plain cotton bedding, spread out like a halo, and for the first time Rey can see his ears. </p><p>“I borrowed the bicycle.” His voice is hushed, the message on ‘volume’ clearly received. “It belongs to one of the WAAFs. She won’t mind.”</p><p>“That’s not borrowing, that’s stealing.”</p><p>He smiles. “Not if I give it back.”</p><p>Ben’s fingers are trailing her arm, back and forth from the short sleeve of her pyjamas to her elbow. It’s a spider-light touch but Rey is engulfed, suddenly back at MAZ’s with that hot wire taut in her belly. The intensity is almost frightening.</p><p>She gets up, paces to the other side of the room. It’s a short walk, and when she turns around Ben has climbed off the bed. He’s laughably large in her tiny bedroom, head almost brushing the sloped ceiling. It’s strange to know that Rose is sleeping on the other side of the wall, and Paige beyond that.</p><p>Rey paces back to him; stops two inches away, skimming her hand lightly down Ben’s side and then leaving it there. Now she’s glad she took off the dress; standing in her pyjamas while Ben towers over her in full uniform is oddly thrilling. </p><p>“I—” </p><p>Ben tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “You?”</p><p>“It was the air raid,” she says, surprisingly herself. “Sometimes those things seem like a…like a new normal, this whole war does, but then something reminds me how big the risks really are. It’s not just the Luftwaffe waiting to drop bombs on my head, it’s every time I get in a plane knowing the engine could fail, or the landing gear not come down, or I could fly through bad weather into the side of a mountain, and it—well, it brought a moment of clarity.”  </p><p>It’s a whispered speech, her voice low as it slides over the room. She pays fierce attention to the belt of Ben’s uniform, high on that wide waist, rubbing her thumb against the blue fabric. There’s more she could say, vague visions shaping a life to exist <em>after</em>, but the hopes are so overwhelming Rey can barely contemplate them herself. </p><p>“Hey. I’m here, aren’t I?” Ben tips her chin up with a curled forefinger. “You don’t have to justify it to me.”</p><p>“No, I know, I just…wanted you to know why I skipped so many steps.”</p><p>Ben hums, gaze earnest. He trails the backs of his fingers along Rey’s jaw, up, up, until he slides them around to cup her neck, thumb brushing at her temple. She can feel her carotid artery jumping against his touch. The combination is heady.</p><p>A moan that she knows will be too loud builds in Rey’s throat. Instead she rises on her toes and kisses him, letting Ben’s mouth swallow the sound. His fingers tighten on the back of her neck, and it shudders all the way down her spine, pooling as heat between Rey’s thighs. </p><p>Rayon is meant to be breathable, but her pyjama shirt is too much now, sliding over skin that’s already sensitive just from his proximity. She twists the top button open with one hand, then more until they’re undone. Ben’s fingers (the ones which aren’t digging into the base of her skull, pulling her head back so he can mouth at her neck, and <em>god</em>, that feels good) hover around her waist, not quite touching. Rey catches his hand, pressing it under the shirt’s floating hem. He’d touched her like this in Maz’s office, spanning half her waist, and it had stolen Rey’s breath. Now there’s nothing between his palm and her skin, not even silk. </p><p>“You can—” and she gasps, because clearly he understands, gliding up to cup her breast. The physicality of it clouds her brain, hot-rough-soft, his hand so large he can hold all of her. Ben brushes the pad of his thumb across her nipple, and Rey doesn’t care whether it was meant or accidental; it melts through her cunt. </p><p>She pushes against him, but Ben is so solid and steady that he doesn’t get the message, doesn’t move an inch.</p><p>“Back,” Rey puffs, pushing again. “Back on the—”</p><p>"On the bed, got it—"</p><p>He takes the single reverse step required by his long stride, dragging Rey with him, and sits heavily on the mattress. The springs creak but Rey barely hears them, too focused on straddling him, knees digging into the bed, hips cradled by his.  </p><p>She grasps his jaw, tipping it up so she can kiss him. "Touch me again.” </p><p>He obliges, hands on her back, pressing her body into his like the laws of the universe won't stop Ben drawing Rey into himself. He breaks the kiss to trail his lips down her throat, between her collarbones, over the rise of her breast, and as Rey clasps his hair Ben scrapes his teeth lightly over her already-sensitive nipple, followed by the soft, hot swirl of his tongue. </p><p>It's—like <em>nothing</em> Rey has experienced, not last summer and not with her own hands. That hot wire in her belly flares and pulses, fluttering the muscles of her cunt, clenching on nothing. She wonders vaguely if she's pulling Ben's hair too tightly, but when her grip jerks with pleasure he hums, a vibration that echoes everywhere they touch.</p><p>"Beautiful," he grunts, voice lost as he presses his face into the space between Rey’s breasts. His fingers flex against her back, ten pressure points sparking some primal reaction that curves her spine, her head thrown back, hips jutting further into his space. </p><p>With the bare minimum of composure Rey slumps forward and scrabbles at the embossed brass buttons of Ben’s uniform, gets three open before she moves on to his tie. </p><p>“Take this—take it off—” she mutters, pulling it loose. </p><p>Ben slides his touch off her back and fumbles with the last button, then with the belt buckle. The jacket’s shoulder is already half-off, pulled down as Rey had straddled him. His hair is messy, rumpled by her fingers, and the whole effect is wanton. </p><p>Rey’s weight feels like a lodestone. As she leans forward he leans back, until they’re tangled on the mattress, Rey’s pyjama shirt missing, Ben’s tie and jacket the same. His uniform shirt is open at the throat, promising the sweep of his collarbones. He is heavy between her thighs, over her chest, a maddening press of rough fabric and skin that makes every thought wordless. </p><p>“I want—” </p><p>Rey sighs, trying to remember she should be quiet (<em>why, what was the reason?)</em>. What does she want? Right now she wants to articulate the empty ache inside her cunt, a longing that feels physical, but she doesn’t know the words; all she can do is wrap her legs tighter around Ben’s hips, cant them up against his cock, hard through his trousers and rubbing deliciously against the smooth glide of her pyjama pants.</p><p>“Rey—” Ben murmurs.</p><p>There’s a creak that is neither the bed nor the settling house. They still immediately, <em>in flagrante delicto</em>. Ben is panting in her ear, chest expanding against hers with each deep breath, trying to even his lungs out and make them quieter. In the sudden pause Rey is acutely aware of the heat and wetness of her cunt, a confession she can’t escape.</p><p>As they listen the creaks keep moving. Along the corridor. Down the stairs. Rey lets out a little of the breath she was holding. Ben’s body loses some of its tension. There are muffled voices now, Paige and Plutt exchanging curt goodnights in the corridor below, and then more creaking as Paige descends again to the kitchen.</p><p>Rey lets another moment of regained quiet go by, dragging her nails lightly against Ben’s scalp. He leans back, elbow dipping the mattress at her side, and looks her in the eye.</p><p>Rey breaks first, a guffaw which almost escapes from pressed lips, and then Ben, huffing his laughter into the curve of her throat. The pipes gurgle—Paige must be running the tap—and then her tread returns up the stairs. The floorboards groan as she passes, until there’s the soft shutting click of her bedroom door. </p><p>That final bit of held breath leaves Rey. Ben mouths gently at her jumping pulse; leans back again, stroking hair out of her face. The heat has trickled away with the laughter, replaced by something that’s warm in a different way. </p><p>“Bit of a mood killer,” Rey quips, smiling. </p><p>That ache inside her has eased; it feels less like the world will end if it goes unfulfilled, at least for now. Ben kisses her softly and sweetly, a languorous touch echoed in the sweep of his palm along her side, her thigh, over the knee still hooked against his hip. </p><p>He gets a little furrowed line between his brows. “You’re right, what you said. It’s a war, we have to take the chances we get. But I would—I would wait. Always. If it was what you wanted.”</p><p>That ache twists and moves, curling in her chest; a different kind of longing. What does she want? All those hopes for something which lasts longer than one night in a creaky old bed against thin walls. Rey lets herself think about those <em>forever </em>dreams, and realises she was right. What she wants is (deliciously, exquisitely) overwhelming. And, in buried truth, she’s a little frightened too.</p><p>She strokes the line of his frown with her finger, watches it ease. “We’ll figure it out.”</p><p>Ben’s mouth quirks like he wants to speak but he’s thinking about it. Then— </p><p>“Can I call you?”</p><p>“Call me?”</p><p>“Tomorrow. Or the day after. Whenever suits.”</p><p>The request hums in Rey’s chest. She traces along his eyebrow, down his cheekbone; presses her fingers briefly to his lips. </p><p>“Yes. Yes, you can call me.”</p><p>There’s always something profound in the way Ben looks at her, like he wants to say a thousand things and can settle on none. Instead he uses the language they’ve discovered between them; a slide of soft lips and tongues, fingers gripping flesh, a moaning hum that gets lost in their kisses. </p><p>Rey drifts her touch over his shoulders, along his back, until it collides with the waistband of his trousers. Something brave blooms inside her; she follows the curve around to the fold of the fly, to its hook and button, fiddling them open with both hands. </p><p>Ben breaks their lazy kisses with a sharp breath. “What—”   </p><p>“Deciding not to fuck doesn’t mean—” and she curls her fingers inside his underwear, “—that I can’t give you something to think about tomorrow.”</p><p>“You don’t have—ah—”</p><p>“Don’t have to, I know. But I want to.” </p><p>Rey is shaking a little as she grasps the head of his cock, excitement and nerves and anticipation all rolled together. The elastic of his regulation shorts traps her wrist, keeping her touch tight as she pulls his cock out, and she slides an experimental thumb over the slit, already a little wet. Ben’s staccato sigh shudders his whole body, breathy with the effort of keeping quiet. He’s still holding her knee, fingers digging into the soft underside, flexing as she circles her hand and begins to glide slowly, slowly down. He’s large and hot and hard, and fresh wetness pools between her legs.</p><p>“Fuck.” Ben’s eyes are shut, his skin starting to flush. “Fuck, that’s good, you—you’re so good—” </p><p>The praise glows inside her, a button she didn’t know could be pressed, and Rey almost moans herself, biting her lip to stay silent. Ben buries his face in her throat, his hair soft and ticklish under her chin. As she quickens the pace his teeth scrape over her pulse, a rough, graceless touch that flutters her cunt. She twists her wrist, the movement following through to her hand as she works back to the tip of his cock, palming the head. His grip on her is almost painful now, but somehow it heightens the gratification she’s taking from his. </p><p>“So good,” he grunts into her skin, a sharp litany; <em>so good, so good, so good</em>. He lets go of her knee, and Rey mourns the absence of pressure until Ben strokes up her ribcage and covers one of her breasts, squeezing her flesh just hard enough to flare pleasure through her cunt. He rolls her nipple between his fingers, pinches. Rey’s grip stutters as she rolls it back down to the hair at the base of his cock and up, then down and up again, faster as she follows the thrust of his hips against her hand. There is sensation everywhere: the silk-soft skin of his cock sliding over its own hardness; his hand kneading her breast; the rough pattern of Ben’s breath against her throat. </p><p>From minor experience Rey recognises when the pattern changes, growing ragged. She strokes once, twice, squeezes lightly; and then her grip is slick and hot as Ben comes, groaning in her ear, twitching in her hand. There’s warmth on her stomach too, even on her breasts. </p><p>For a long moment they’re both still. The world slowly returns; the breeze through the window, the whispering trees, the whir of summer crickets. Ben folds into the bed, angling to Rey’s side to avoid the mess they’ve made. She slides her hand away—Ben shivers with the touch—and looks at it for a moment, sticky and cooling, before she wipes it off. </p><p>Rey feels oddly powerful.</p><p>When she turns her head Ben is looking at her. Rey’s stomach flips like this isn’t the hundredth time tonight. </p><p>“I can guarantee,” Ben says, “that I’ll think about that tomorrow.”</p><p>Rey laughs; remembers her own advice and bites down on it. </p><p>It doesn’t seem fair to move, but eventually they roll from the bed, wiping themselves down and tidying up. Ben frowns at his uniform, which has looked better. Rey shrugs her pyjama shirt back on, fastening a single button in the middle.</p><p>“I assume the front door is still out of bounds,” Ben says, leaning down to kiss her. </p><p>Rey smiles against his lips. “You climb in, you climb out. Those are the rules.”</p><p>It’s a mirror held up to earlier; Ben sat on the ledge, tying up his shoelaces, back curved against the peeling window frame. </p><p>“Oh.” He digs in his trouser pocket, pulls out a familiar piece of folded paper. <em>Come to my billet after</em>. “The number.”</p><p>His tone is even, but Rey hears the tiny temor at the end, as though it was almost a question. She touches his hand, a wordless reassurance, and clambers off the bed for a pen, resting the note on the dresser. </p><p>“If you call this house it’ll be a nightmare.” She scrawls the sequence on the other side, an area code and four numbers. “But they keep a non-ops phone in the break room at Endor, so just ask the telephone exchange for this.”</p><p>She curls back up on the mattress, refolding the paper and handing it over. This time Ben tucks it into his top pocket.</p><p>“Tomorrow, then. Or today, I think.”</p><p>The moon is too low for it to be midnight—it’s an hour later, probably, maybe a little more—but Rey has another day off tomorrow, and besides; right now she couldn’t sleep if you paid her. </p><p>“I can cycle over and take the call…elevenish, probably? Paige has a bike I can borrow.” She smiles. “And I’ll ask her first.”</p><p>Ben leans back through the window, grasping the frame to keep himself steady as he kisses her. It’s fiercer and hotter than the explorations they’d made in the soft glow of MAZ’S; less a match struck than the spark itself, kindling the flame. It lasts forever, and yet in no time at all Ben has clambered down and is treading lightly across the dirt and gravel.</p><p>He retrieves the bicycle from the hedge, takes a last glance up at her. The light from Rey’s window throws the faintest yellow tint across his face, like a lasting imprint of that kindling spark; and then Ben is swinging his leg over the bike and disappearing into the shadows beyond the house. Out of her sight, but not out of her mind.</p><p>Rey folds her arms on the window ledge, resting her chin on the jut of her wrist, left with the scent of Ben (<em>warm like lumber, the faint trace of salt</em>) and with intimacy she’ll need to wash from her sheets tomorrow. She watches the empty lane for a long time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Chapter title from the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2r5_J0Y69M">Dive</a> by Victoria Monét (consider it the unofficial soundtrack to this chapter).</p><p>
  <b>WWII</b>
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  <a href="https://www.minkyvintage.com/blog/2017/8/6/vintage-fabrics-1940s-rayon">1940s rayon</a>
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  <a href="https://vintagedancer.com/1940s/1940s-sleepwear/">1940s sleepwear</a>
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  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code">The Hays Code</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Ministry">Air Ministry</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-bicycles.htm">1940s/50s bicycles</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://www.flyingtigerantiques.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/rafunifbttnbttltdwwiiobv.jpg">WWII RAF uniform button</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-phone-numbers.htm">1940s/50s UK telephone numbers</a>
</p><p>On the night of 31 August - 1 September 1940, the moon was indeed a <a href="https://mooncalendar.astro-seek.com/moon-phases-calendar-august-1940">waning crescent</a>.</p><p>I realised that until now I've provided no visual reference for the RAF uniform; here you can see see it <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/af/5c/e3af5c6f261e3bb8fffa638b325a68a6.jpg">modelled</a> by the lovely <a href="https://66.media.tumblr.com/a156dfa8e5d5bd24e2ccb89ae40811c6/tumblr_pi12cjiBI81uwwu7x_250.gif">Sam Heughan</a> of <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/be/08/1d/be081dc8f7077e273a97ec3db82d1377.gif">Outlander fame</a> (that last gif is a tiny bit NSFW).</p><p>When it comes to underwear, boxers did exist in the 1940s but they were called <a href="https://vintagedancer.com/1940s/1940s-mens-underwear/">shorts</a>.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can find me on <a href="https://twitter.com/sciosophia/status/1259165568734760960?s=20">twitter</a> and (occasionally) <a href="https://sciosophia.tumblr.com/post/617656313430867968/1940-in-the-skies-above-britain-first-officer">tumblr</a>.</p><p>If you fancy it, this fic also has a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2rC7z7TrMcLZLwnyiUJMfx?si=kt6Hgn7JT9qAoU6zQq4NJg">playlist</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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